Battles | dailybeatz

Posts tagged with battles

10/04/2011

All Tomorrow’s Parties I’ll Be Your Mirror curated by Portishead, Asbury Park, NJ 9.30 – 10.2.11 in Pictures

As my musical taste has expanded, I’ve been trying to hit up some of the slightly more off the beaten path festivals that are out there, having been to many of the mega festivals already. So this year, a few of us decided we were going to head to the Jersey shore, more specifically Asbury Park, to check out one of the much lauded festivals thrown by All Tomorrow’s Parties. This would be the inaugural US version of the I’ll Be Your Mirror festival and this time it was curated by none other than Portishead and it had a vibe unlike any festival I’ve been to before. If you aren’t familiar, the festival organizers essentially give the headliners, in this case Portishead, a budget and the band actually selects several of the acts that play for the weekend.

The Paramount Theater, Convention Hall, Asbury Lanes and The Berkeley Hotel served as the venues, all conveniently within walking distance of each other, and hosted an extremely diverse set of bands over the three days. In this case, there really was something for everyone (check out the full lineup here). In addition to Portishead’s two headlining spots on Saturday and Sunday, Jeff Mangum also played two highly anticipated solo sets in the Paramount Theater. I went into the festival only knowing about 25% of the acts and didn’t see one set I didn’t love all weekend.

One of the more interesting facets of the fest is that there aren’t really any VIPs — that is, the artists mix and mingle with the crowd just like the rest of us. It creates an atmosphere where everyone is comfortable talking to one another and I met more great people than I have at any other festival, including many of my favorite artists. Even though Asbury Park is not the greatest area in the world outside of the shore, the boardwalk is great and the venues felt just perfect for a festival like this one. For many of us, the nights ended with dance parties as Asbury Lanes, one of the coolest bowling alleys around thats got a great vibe and is bursting at the seams with art from local artists, with a stage occupying the central lanes while festival goers bowled on either side. But like I like to do, instead of talking about it, just check out a ton of pictures from the weekend after the jump.

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06/08/2010

Battles – The Line

While I have a major problem with the whole Twilight series (mostly due to the fact that as a result of it, all of us dudes are expected to live up to some unrealistic ideal of a fictional character, one who, from what I can gather while making a conscious effort not to know, is actually kind of a dick, but that every girl still goes nuts over), you can’t deny that whoever is in charge of their soundtracks has some major pull in getting lots of big name acts to contribute. I’ve been trying to stay away from it, but when I heard there would be a new tune from Battles, I had to investigate. And what we get is not disappointing. It starts out all mellow and mild but still full of weird/uncomfortable chord progressions in true Battles fashion, but about halfway through it really picks up and gets into the good stuff. Which can mostly be described as high energy mania. And when it hits, it hits oh so good. In a way that’s sort of like “Oh yeah, this is why I like Battles.” I haven’t heard any of the other Twilight songs, but I kind of want the whole series to go away. True Blood, on the other hand, now that I can buy into.

Battles – The Line

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10/01/2009

school of seven bells – connjur

school of seven bells live

ive been wanting to post a track by school of seven bells for quite some time now. the band is made up of twin sisters alejandra and claudia deheza and benjamin curtis of fellow indie band secret machines. their sound is really something unique. its part electronic, part tribal, and part what i think enya would sound like if enya were an indie rock act. but i shouldnt be surprised by their excellent and unique sound because they are signed to ghostly international, one of the coolest labels around, and not just because they are based in ann arbor, mi, my home away from home (which happens to only be about 40 minutes from my actual home).

when did i know that i loved ghostly international? last spring when the university of michigan museum of art had its grand reopening with a 24 hour extravaganza, ghostly international contributed with an hour of its favorite music videos. the first video they showed was “atlas” by battles. somewhere in the middle there was “deep sea diver” by grizzly bear. just a great song and video. i dont remember a lot of the other songs, but the final song was the gem below, which apparently is “poney part 1″ by vitalic. if youve ever wondered what computer generated dogs defying gravity with laser beams against an electronic track would look like, look no further.

as for todays song, like i said, it reminds me a lot of a modern day enya mixed with a bit of electronic. this whole “alpinisms” album is full of great songs like this, some much darker, and some much much more out there, and some not even remotely sounding anything like this one. but thats the beauty of the ghostly international label. a lot of the stuff is really experimental, and we know how i love experimental. ive heard through the grapevine that school of seven bells is a completely unreal live act and im looking forward to checking them out one day.

school of seven bells – connjur

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