by Ed Biggs Four years ago, New York’s Battles dealt with the departure of their former lead singer Tyondai Braxton by hiring a number of guest vocalists for their thrilling second album Gloss Drop, giving it the feeling of a compilation or mixtape rather than a studio album. It soft, pliable sound, missing the sharp, angular edges of the group’s 2007 debut Mirrored, but was terrific, bizarre fun nonetheless. For their
Continue reading…
To adapt that famous misquotation attributed to Mark Twain, reports of the album’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Ever since the turn of the millennium, conventional wisdom has had it that the traditional long-player is on its way out, an arcane format out of time with the digital world that will cede inexorably to a future of singles and playlists. But while many artists have experimented with what an album