Battle of Mice - A Day of Nights
- Thread starter Krilons Resa
- Start date
Sadguru
In my dream...
Of course you need it. Listen to Doomcifer and blind buy that gem. You don't come across an album like this every years.
“Looking back, I can see that [the songs] were written in a timeline that mirrors what was happening in our growing, and then rapidly decaying, relationship,” says Battle of Mice vocalist Julie Christmas. The order in which the songs on A Day of Nights were tracked reflects this psychological putrefaction: Before the album’s final song was recorded, an unnamed band member accidentally “fell” down the stairs.
That there never was a more violent conflict is a matter of record: The armies of the two nations with the greatest military reputation were fighting an evenly matched battle. —Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander the Great (volume 6; 1)
After the successful invasion of Crete in or around 331 B.C., King Agis III of Sparta laid seige the fledgling Arcadian city of Megalopolis. He was met by Alexander the Great’s regent, Antipater, and a force of 40,000 Macedonian soldiers. The resulting battle is referred to historically as one of the bloodiest in Alexandrian times, with a recorded death toll of nearly 9,000 men. According to legend, Agis slaughtered a handful of enemy warriors—while on his knees—before being killed by a Macedonian javelin. Despite the carnage at Megalopolis, Alexander was unimpressed. Upon hearing of the battle, he is alleged to have said, “It seems, my friends, that while we have been conquering Darius here, there has been a battle of mice in Arcadia.” (Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus, 15).
Battle of Mice, the band, finds its origins in a similar, if considerably less deadly, brand of antagonism. Vocalist Julie Christmas and guitarist/keyboardist Josh Graham met in Austin, Texas, when their respective bands—Made Out Of Babies and Red Sparowes—played the South By Southwest Music Festival in 2005. The pair hated each other immediately. When the two bands embarked on a West Coast tour together later that year, Julie and Josh’s attitudes toward one another took on a decidedly different hue. A long-distance relationship (Graham in LA; Christmas in NYC) ensued, the furious and occasionally harrowing nature of which is reflected in the music of Battle of Mice. “The sonic philosophy of the band reflects a huge, primal range of emotion: Love, lust, jealousy, whiskey, and blind rage,” Julie explains. And while it might be pointed out that “whiskey” is not necessarily a clinically-recognized human emotion, it is unlikely that anyone will misunderstand the implications of its inclusion after hearing Battle of Mice.
With the addition of bassist Tony Maimone (Book of Knots, ex-Pere Ubu) and drummer/producer Joel Hamilton (Book of Knots, Players Club, Glazed Baby), Battle of Mice entered Studio G in Brooklyn and recorded seven songs for their debut full-length, A Day of Nights. By the time the band finished tracking five of the seven songs, Josh and Julie’s relationship had become a thunderhead of psychic pollution, and the seething tension of the attendant working environment was too much for Maimone to withstand. By the time the sixth song, “Cave of Spleen,” was recorded, Julie and Josh couldn’t bear to be in the same room together. As such, the guitars and vocals were completed on different days; the vocals in one take, with no pre-written lyrics. The result is an album that is alternately hypnotic (“Sleep and Dream”
and horrifying (the 911 call at the end of “At the Base of the Giant’s Throat,” which the group refuses to discuss), enthralling (“Salt Bridge” and epic (“The Lamb and the Labrador”.
Thus, A Day of Nights documents the savage trajectory of an interpersonal flameout. It is a litany of ominous overtones and malicious subtext, a catalogue of the poisons that conspire to choke our best intentions; a testament to the inexorable miasma of suspicion and paranoia that creeps, unannounced, into the open spaces between us all. Which isn’t to say that beauty and grace cannot be the handmaidens of ugliness and dysfunction: A Day of Nights is nothing if not mesmerizing; a living, breathing monument to the optimistic notion that everything happens for a reason. And despite any unseemly events that may have transpired, there WILL be more Battle of Mice Records to come.
http://www.neurotrecordings.com/detail.aspx?ID=130
That there never was a more violent conflict is a matter of record: The armies of the two nations with the greatest military reputation were fighting an evenly matched battle. —Quintus Curtius Rufus, The History of Alexander the Great (volume 6; 1)
After the successful invasion of Crete in or around 331 B.C., King Agis III of Sparta laid seige the fledgling Arcadian city of Megalopolis. He was met by Alexander the Great’s regent, Antipater, and a force of 40,000 Macedonian soldiers. The resulting battle is referred to historically as one of the bloodiest in Alexandrian times, with a recorded death toll of nearly 9,000 men. According to legend, Agis slaughtered a handful of enemy warriors—while on his knees—before being killed by a Macedonian javelin. Despite the carnage at Megalopolis, Alexander was unimpressed. Upon hearing of the battle, he is alleged to have said, “It seems, my friends, that while we have been conquering Darius here, there has been a battle of mice in Arcadia.” (Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus, 15).
Battle of Mice, the band, finds its origins in a similar, if considerably less deadly, brand of antagonism. Vocalist Julie Christmas and guitarist/keyboardist Josh Graham met in Austin, Texas, when their respective bands—Made Out Of Babies and Red Sparowes—played the South By Southwest Music Festival in 2005. The pair hated each other immediately. When the two bands embarked on a West Coast tour together later that year, Julie and Josh’s attitudes toward one another took on a decidedly different hue. A long-distance relationship (Graham in LA; Christmas in NYC) ensued, the furious and occasionally harrowing nature of which is reflected in the music of Battle of Mice. “The sonic philosophy of the band reflects a huge, primal range of emotion: Love, lust, jealousy, whiskey, and blind rage,” Julie explains. And while it might be pointed out that “whiskey” is not necessarily a clinically-recognized human emotion, it is unlikely that anyone will misunderstand the implications of its inclusion after hearing Battle of Mice.
With the addition of bassist Tony Maimone (Book of Knots, ex-Pere Ubu) and drummer/producer Joel Hamilton (Book of Knots, Players Club, Glazed Baby), Battle of Mice entered Studio G in Brooklyn and recorded seven songs for their debut full-length, A Day of Nights. By the time the band finished tracking five of the seven songs, Josh and Julie’s relationship had become a thunderhead of psychic pollution, and the seething tension of the attendant working environment was too much for Maimone to withstand. By the time the sixth song, “Cave of Spleen,” was recorded, Julie and Josh couldn’t bear to be in the same room together. As such, the guitars and vocals were completed on different days; the vocals in one take, with no pre-written lyrics. The result is an album that is alternately hypnotic (“Sleep and Dream”
and horrifying (the 911 call at the end of “At the Base of the Giant’s Throat,” which the group refuses to discuss), enthralling (“Salt Bridge” and epic (“The Lamb and the Labrador”.Thus, A Day of Nights documents the savage trajectory of an interpersonal flameout. It is a litany of ominous overtones and malicious subtext, a catalogue of the poisons that conspire to choke our best intentions; a testament to the inexorable miasma of suspicion and paranoia that creeps, unannounced, into the open spaces between us all. Which isn’t to say that beauty and grace cannot be the handmaidens of ugliness and dysfunction: A Day of Nights is nothing if not mesmerizing; a living, breathing monument to the optimistic notion that everything happens for a reason. And despite any unseemly events that may have transpired, there WILL be more Battle of Mice Records to come.
http://www.neurotrecordings.com/detail.aspx?ID=130
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Sleep and Dream has intrigued me. However, I am far from being sold.
Upload some more of these shitz!
Upload some more of these shitz!
Demonspell
cheating the polygraph
Right now I'm still on Day 2 with this, and it does occasionally sound like a collaboration between two people who have grown to hate each other. But as with just about everything Neurosis related, the music does its best to grab you by the throat and overpower you...
Jerry...go back and check this shit out now that you have such a penchant for female-fronted, down-tuned bands.
I listened to it for the first time in a couple years the other night and it made my toes curl. So much raw emotion.
I listened to it for the first time in a couple years the other night and it made my toes curl. So much raw emotion.
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
7 minutes in and I'm hearing that they inserted a "sample" from a movie or goat knows where. I fn hate when bands do this. :continues listening:
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
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