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Oct 30, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Battles

Battles released a new album, Juice B Crypts, a couple of weeks back via Warp. Now they have shared a video for the album’s “Fort Greene Park.” Colin Read directed the amusing clip, which features the band performing while they get pulled by people on various wheeled and non-wheeled modes of transportation, including a group of kids riding scooters and at one point a flying drone. Watch it below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Guitarist Ian Williams had this to say about the video in a press release: “A lot of things going on here for me. My daughter called her little brother Juice B Crypts when he was born. I didn’t know what that meant. But here the opening shot is of him climbing the Prison Ships Martyr Monument in Fort Greene Park, which is an actual crypt, and near to where I lived for 13 years. The place played a central role in my life for a long time. On another level, one of the guys from the building where I live rides an E-Unicycle around my neighborhood and was the original kernel of an idea for this video. So he and his friends are the e-unicyclists. My daughter and her kindergarten friends are the kids on the scooters. Other friends of ours are some of the skaters. And Colin elevated the concept of the video extending it into a broader story about the evolution of human transport which is a contentious issue these days in our city of New York. But in the end, it just a love letter to the place we live. New York City.”

Drummer John Stanier adds: “It was an absolute pleasure working with Colin Read and everyone involved! Taking an original tiny idea and transforming it into this visual masterpiece was no easy task. The most fun I have ever had on a video shoot!”

Previously Battles shared Juice B Crypts’ first single, “Titanium 2 Step,” which features Sal Principato of Liquid Liquid and was one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared two more songs from it, “A Loop So Nice…” and “They Played It Twice,” which are interconnected and meant to run together (and so have been presented in one YouTube visual). They featured guest vocals from Xenia Rubinos.

Juice B Crypts finds Battles reconfigured as a duo, Ian Williams (keys, guitar, electronics) and John Stanier (drums) remain after bassist Dave Konopka left the band last year. Juice B Crypts is the band’s fourth full-length, the follow-up to 2015’s La Di Da Di. Chris Tabron (Trash Talk, Mobb Deep, Ratking) produced and mixed the album. As well as Sal Principato, the album also features Taipei-based psychedelic band Prairie WWWW, Yes vocalist Jon Anderson, Shabazz Palaces, and tUnE-yArDs.

Williams had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “It’s about chord progressions, resolutions, returning home. Take that and throw it into a blender of modern electronic tools like glitching devices, or use melodic lines and take them and regurgitate them and pulverize the traditional stuff but at the same time try and retain harmonic relationships while completely smashing them up.”

Battles Tour Dates:

October 30 - Paris, FR - Le Trabendo (Parc de la Villette)
October 31 - Borgerhout, BE - TRIX
November 1 - Turin, IT - Club To Club Festival 2019
December 1 - Seattle, WA - Neumos
December 2 - Portland, OR - Hawthorne
December 3 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent
December 4 - Los Angeles, CA - Lodge Room
December 7 - Toronto, ON - Lee’s Palace
December 8 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall
December 10 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall Of Williamsburg
December 11 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall

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