Unfinished Projects

I’m supposed to be coming up with a plan for dinner today, but I need to rave a bit about the new Battles album, ‘Mirrored’. I picked up a used copy at Amoeba while I was home for a week, which was a pretty sweet score because how often do you find a used copy of an album that’s only been out for a couple of weeks? (answer: pretty often, at Amoeba.) I’m just sorry for whoever sold their copy because it rules really hard. Like most of the music that I’m interested in lately, the drumming dominates the sound, but they also bring in thick, buzzing bass tones, Ian Williams’ Don Caballero guitar (which was probably my favorite part of Don Cab), and, new to this album, all sorts of weird chipmunk vocals. That sounds bad, but it totally isn’t.

So here’s a video of the single, ‘Atlas’. I’m pretty excited about this embedded YouTube thing. I’ve never done it before. Anyway, the song is very good, and a bit slower than most of the other stuff on the album. But you do get a very good feel of the heavy drumming and processed vocals. This one is Christian’s favorite.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpGp-22t0lU[/youtube]

I also looked around for some videos of other songs. Most of it was live stuff with pretty poor quality, so I’m not going to post any more here. But if you think that ‘Atlas’ is pretty rocking, then search for ‘battles tras’ on YouTube and a bunch of stuff shows up.

It’s been a long, long time since I posted, but I have some pretty good excuses. One of the excuses is that I was in California. I went to a wedding! And I posted some photos here.

The links joining the chains of this swing to its wooden crossbar creaked slightly as my foot traced out loopy shapes. My vision focused on the buckle of my shoe, just above the toe which was burrowing through gray pebbles. The afternoon shade was silent but I looked up and took in the full expanse of the playlot. Within the rectangle defined by boundary boards were so many identical stones that their cumulative number, all summed up, surely exceeded any value which might be relevant, encountered in my day-to-day life. But the whole lot had been put up just last week. The uncountable stones were just a few hours work for a truck, three men, and shovels.

With a rattle, I slid forward off the seat and stood. Turning, I ran between two adjacent swings, brushing fingers of each hand across their chains, still slightly greased. Down the hill and towards the cooler shadows of the creek, I disappeared, leaving behind a collage etched temporarily on the ground: two shoe-sized craters blasted across a swaying network of canyons.