That's My Dad.

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #44, Battles - White Electric (Shabazz Palaces Remix)

Reaganomics, Bushonomics, Obamanomics.

We didn’t get much of hip-hop experimentalists Shabazz Palaces this year, after their mind-bending 2011 debut LP: “Black Up”. Alas, they blessed us with their presence early this year on the Battles remix compilation “Dross Glop” with their most psychedelic entry to date: a hip-hop rendition of “White Electric”. The bass is out to drown your ears in bouncy lows, the vocals are slathered with an electric reverb and Shabazz’s Ishmael Butler spits some of catchier abstract verses to date. 

(Source: Spotify)

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #47, The Maccabees - Pelican

Pharaoah, they’re not coming with you.

I fell in love with The Maccabees’ unique rock sensibilities early this year with the release of “Given to the Wild”, but always clung on to it like a terrifying guilty pleasure. With its math rock-esque qualities and stuttering lyrics, “Pelican” was the only moment I took no shame in parading my joviality for this group. While “Pelican” plays as a total digression from “Given to the Wild“‘s swoon-worthy alt-rock, its a moment more akin to adventurous artists Battles or The Vaccines.  

Zammuto - Zammuto

Former member Nick Zammuto of acclaimed experimental duo The Books returns with his self-titled solo project and new LP: Zammuto. While The Books called it quits at the top of their game (breaking up in 2010, with their last release “The Way Out”), there was a lack of closure in where their final creative destinations were. Well, Zammuto is here to clear up any loose creative ends. Through each of his tracks, Nick concocts an idea sonically, throws in a house of mirrors, and when it finds its way out, smashes it with a sledgehammer (like Gallagher). It’s an explosive musical style, but not of Flaming Lips proportions; think of a more technically defined Anamanaguchi or Animal Collective. With rapping computer voices, absurdly edited jazz and electronic samples galore and the coolest usage of auto-tune I’ve ever heard, it would be a challenge to deny Zammuto’s enthralling qualities. Through all of its skippy, skittery, zany, bouncy, smart and unadulterated fun, “Zammuto” is the most enriching experience the world of experimental rock has this year; heck, I haven’t this much fun since Battles’ “Gloss Drop”. (10/10)

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Battles - Dross Glop

Read My Full Review on ‘Listen Before You Buy’

Along comes the remix baby brother: “Dross Glop”, a compilation album based off math rock maestros Battles’ acclaimed 2011 album “Gloss Drop”. “Dross Glop” has been meticulously growing a certain level of hype with a series of 12’’ vinyls coming out this year and a killer line-up of technically superior producers behind it all. We’re talking Shabazz Palaces, Hudson Mohawke, The Field, Gang Gang Dance; everyone and their mother is on this compilation, given you’re in the scene to appreciate artists mainly for their technical ability. […]

(7/10)

Top 25 Albums of 2011 (1-10)

1. The Weeknd - House of Balloons

2. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

3. Battles - Gloss Drop

4. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

5. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra 

6. The Head and the Heart - The Head and the Heart

7. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

8. James Blake - James Blake

9. Bon Iver - Bon Iver

10. Florence and the Machine - Ceremonials

I’m eating candy.

I’m eating pure sugar.

I’m eating ice cream. 

I’m listening to Gloss Drop. 

Battles is an experimental rock band part of a heavily emerging sub-genre called “math rock”, known for playing around with the basic traditions of music theory and compositions to the point where everything sounds crazier and slicker than anything conventional rock could even touch. Battles changes everything from time signatures to song structures that function as intricately as an unsolvable neon Rubik’s cube. Combined with rhythm placements between instruments that layer each other like an overly large ice cream sundae where each different flavor tastes strikingly bold yet, the compound of things going on could be meshed together for a collective new flavor of absolute resonance. These guys really know the insides and outs of music, they’ve felt up what the human senses are sensitive to, placed dynamite on it and let the explosion ring on this album. 

Gloss Drop is a wholesome and everlasting serving of pure bliss. There is no room to spare with these songs, its just constant and pure energy; like holding your breath throughout the album’s duration and running through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Listening to this entire album just makes me feel like I should be eating what’s on the cover.

Now, with plenty of avant-garde artists making their own definitive mark and continually evolving music in the current independent industry, what’s so different about Battles? 

At the heart of Gloss Drop, there is an element of deviousness at work. Most experimental artists tweak and add a new gloss or perception or effect to the conventions of primary music theory. So Battles goes to the heart of things and puts basic music theory on an ultimate sugar rush. Once that Energizer bunny’s hopping, all they can do is take the magic it emits and blast it on full. The instruments are hyper, but not in the sense of shorter and faster notes or artificially coated effects; Battles feels organic and beyond our developed taste palettes. 

If math rock is abstract art, Battles is Picasso.

This album is my dad.