ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Battles

Battles recover from two tumultuous years and release Gloss Drop, an album that cohesively summarises these struggles.

Mirrored, the critically acclaimed debut from American post-rockers Battles was released in 2007. An all-encompassing tome of unyielding vision, critics and fans alike waited with baited breath for a follow up...and waited. When announcements in late 2010 confirmed Gloss Drop would be released early the following year, I requested interview time...and waited.

The tardiness at this end is no label lethargy, but symptomatic of a recording process fraught with stumbling blocks and inspirational dead ends. In fact, the band, let alone their sophomore record, almost ceased to exist. “It was a really fucked up situation. In a nutshell, due to certain people’s strange commitments, we basically wasted two years. Then the line-up changed and we deleted everything from those two years and wrote, recorded and mixed the new record in four months,” explains drummer John Stanier from Warp Records’ London HQ - hungover following one of the first promotional gigs for the record.

When pushed on what strange commitments and personal issues he’s referring to, Stanier is apologetically vague but explains - while hinting that relationship breakdowns are partly to blame - that they couldn’t be happier with the album, even if in the end they worked 16 hour days to complete it. “The result of this record is taking a really negative situation and turning it into an extremely positive one. I could not be happier with our new record, it’s amazing to me that it exists. I realize that this is a clichéd rock statement to make, the whole, ‘oh this record was really difficult to make,’ but I would be lying if I didn’t talk about it.”

Battles - Futura (A Take Away Show)

In the case of Gloss Drop then, life imitates art, although not as one might expect from purveyors of the concept album. “To be totally honest, the weird thing about this entire record and situation is that time played such a key element in the creation of everything. In those last four months it was non-stop deadlines. If we didn’t do something right, then the record wouldn’t have come out until 2016 or something. So there wasn’t anything going on in terms of vision - we didn’t have time to sit around and listen to some record that was going to influence us. I have no idea what Dave (Konopka) or Ian (Williams) were listening to when they were sleeping - if they even did sleep. There wasn’t a group vibe session where we sat around and listened to cool records and got influences from that. I think it was such a draining situation that we were forced to dig super deep down inside and pull out influences we’ve probably had in us for a long time - that we don’t necessarily advertise on our sleeve,” explains Stanier in the marbled voice of someone in desperate need of a good night’s sleep.

The subconscious influences of one of contemporary music’s most critically acclaimed bands have culminated in...a giant pink blob. Impressive visual output abound. The image of an indescribably grotesque pink blob seemed a baffling choice for their sophomore album cover, but as Stanier explains, indescribable and baffling are exactly the point.

“Dave’s the designer of the group and he pretty much took the reigns on that,” he explains. “From what I gather it’s reactionary to the artwork on Mirrored, where Mirrored was very obvious and masculine. I feel this artwork is non-representational, which was a point we wanted to emphasise. It’s an image of something where you think you know what it is, but if you sit there and stare at it long enough you have doubts. You can’t tell if it’s liquid or solid, glossy or matt. It’s just this weird, pink blob.”

By Courtney Sanders

Read the full feature on Battles and their new album Gloss Drop in the latest issue of Rip It Up in stores now.