September 18, 2009
Tyondai Braxton | Central Market
FRESH BAKED
in NYC
Tyondai Braxton
Central Market
2009 | Warp
B+
The lower the framerate, the faster life moves. When you think back to Charlie Chaplin’s classic Depression-era commentary Modern Times, the limitations inherent in early celluloid forced people to move quicker. Modern Times’ assembly line workers move impossibly quickly to keep up with the rate of production. This is accomplished almost incidentally: the tiny, missing photographic fragments create this jerking, frantic motion that better gets at the sweaty, infinitely demanding pace of the 30s American worker than modern film ever could.
In Central Market, Tyondai Braxton (most known for his work as the dude with the alien vocals in Battles) has created an orchestral piece that manages to simultaneously soundtrack and stand as one of those films. In the first seconds of opener “Opening Bell,” the cinema begins: a lighthearted, cartoonish piano chirps away a few bars. For a few bars, this piano sits alone, a faint computer drone buzzing in the background. A friendly gang of whistling joins in, and the looped computer drone is joined by computerized whistles. They contradict each other: the computer harsh and industrial, the whistles happy, and so classically organic, the sounds of the workers in the factory. As the song proceeds, the two battle each other for the spotlight: long sections dedicated to fluttering strings, flutes, and whistles, only to be met by the robotic pounding of computers.
It’s this tension between the friendly, organic nature of Braxton’s orchestra against the spastic grinding of computers, that make Central Market an essential listen of 2009. If you’re familiar with Battles’ 2007 must-listen Mirrored, then you may have some idea of what to expect from Market. Braxton has a very specific style of composition that relies heavily on looping different sounds or melodies for many minutes at a time. The songs become so concentrated on these loops that when they abruptly end, or are replaced with a new section, the listener gets shocked or feels uneasy, torn away and told to focus on something else.
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compiled by Max Sebela
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compiled by Erin Sheehy
July 17, 2009
Tyondai Braxton | “Uffe’s Woodshop”
ART OF SONG
Tyondai Braxton
“Uffe’s Woodshop”
Central Market
2009 | Warp
New York’s instrumental-prog-sampled-electro-math-rock-supergroup Battles has one of the finer pedigrees of the decade. They formed in 2003 from the scrap yard of a bunch of nearly dissipated (though important) bands quickly approaching irrelevance. Notably, guitarist Ian Williams played lead guitar for mathrock pioneers Don Caballero, and drummer John Stanier used to play with the alt-metal band Helmet. And then there were the two other guys: Dave Konopka (formerly of the math band, Lynx) on a second guitar, and Tyondai Braxton on keyboard.
For their two debut EPs (which were released in 2004, and re-released like three times after that) the heavily blogged, much buzzed, seemingly overhyped Battles stayed pretty close to the middle of the road, playing some really tight, fast, heavily technical instrumental math rock – which was exactly what was expected of them. It sounded just distinct enough from Don Cab to be its own band…and yet still managed to sound a whole lot like Don Cab. They played shows, garnered some praise, and went quiet.
Then in 2007, after three years without much new output, the band put out Mirrored. And Mirrored was really, really different. The songs had an industrial, abrasive backbeat, viscously tapped guitars, robotic keyboards, and what sounded like ET impersonating the 2001 Moulin Rouge recording of “Lady Marmalade.” Mirrored is as awesome as that sounds. There were traces of Don Cab and Helmet, but just barely (those elements were mostly replaced by said ET voice).
Which, finally, brings me to “Uffe’s Woodshop,” the first thing to come from the Battles camp since Mirrored and an absurd amount of tour dates. “Uffe’s” is from Tyondai Braxton’s, the supergroup’s least-established member’s, upcoming solo album, Central Market. After Mirrored, Braxton became something of a frontman for Battles’. He did the vocals and played keyboards, the two things that made their album so distinct from other math-prog. But since, it has remained unclear whose ideas these things were, why they shifted so far from their original sounds, and who made Mirrored the futuristic musical mindfuck it was.
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