Album: Juice B Crypts
Artist: Battles
2019 Warp Records Ltd.
CD: WARPCD301

Battles:
Ian Williams
John Stanier


Produced & mixed by Chris Tabron
Recorded by Nate Odden
Additional engineering & assistant mix engineer: Brandon Peralta
Mastered by Heba Kadry
Artwork by Andrew Kuo
Layout & design by Caleb Halter


Tracks:
1. "Ambulance" (4:21)
2. "A Loop So Nice..." (2:14)
3. "They Played It Twice" (3:09), feat. Xenia Rubinos
4. "Sugar Foot" (5:19), feat. Jon Anderson & Prairie WWWW
5. "Fort Greene Park" (5:45)
6. "Titanium 2 Step" (3:26), feat. Sal Principato
7. "Hiro 3" (1:09)
8. "Izm" (3:37), feat. Shabazz Palaces
9. "Juice B Crypts" (3:57)
10. "The Last Supper On Shasta" (7:48), feat. Tune-Yards

Written by Williams/Stanier



Notes (*****): On some releases, (10) is split into "Last Supper on Shasta Pt. 1" (3:52) and "Last Supper on Shasta Pt. 2" (3:55).

This was Battles' fourth album, released 18 Oct 2019. A quartet, than a trio, this was their first album as a duo: Ian Williams on guitars/synths and John Stanier on drums. My CD version of the album doesn't give performing credits, but Wikipedia lists:

Williams: keys, synthesizers, guitar, bass, effects, Ableton Push
Stanier: drums, percussion

With:
Tune-Yards: vocals, instrumention
Principato: vocals
Shabazz Palaces: vocals, instrumention
Prairie WWWW: vocals, instrumention
Rubinos: vocals
Anderson: vocals

The album is electronic music, with a dash of post-rock. Vocals are used more as another instrument than to sing lyrics, but there are some sections with lyrics. The same applies to Anderson's contributions on (4): initially, the piece uses a loop of wordless vocals from him, but there's also some lyrics later in the piece.

Back in 2012/3, Jon Anderson was working on a project with regular collaborator Jonathan Elias (produced on Union), Jimmy Haun (ex-CIRCA:, Arc of Life) and Michael Sherwood (Billy's elder brother), but the project was never completed. In a Feb 2021 interview with SOAL Night Live, Haun talked about the project. He described how Anderson said it got "a little too proggy for him [...] He was getting into something different at that point [...] He loved this band Battles [...] He was like, 'Can we do something like Battles?' [...] Jon didn't want to go down that road [progressive rock] again." Anderson had already or would soon be in contact with Battles. Stanier said in a 2019 interview: "About eight or nine years ago, [Anderson]'s management contacted us or me: 'Jon Anderson from Yes wants you to play drums on one of these songs on his solo record. He is really into Battles.' It didn't work out timing-wise or whatever. Then Jon Anderson emailed me back and was like, 'Love Battles. By the way, anytime you guys want to do a collabo, let me know. I'll do vocals'." (HP, 30 Aug 21)

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