Electronic Sound July 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 29

rotunda. There is perhaps no greater
validation of the artistic quality of your
work than having it performed in one of
the world’s most prestigious galleries,
but the concept and spectacle of the
Guggenheim presentation did rather
sound like yet another example of big
budget electronic music for a monied
audience.

TYONDAI
BRAXTON
HIVE1

NONESUCH

The one-time Battles frontman
brings his collaborative performance
piece to the studio
Battles were always a strange
proposition. Signed to Warp in the UK,
they operated in a weirdly other space
where it was okay to fuse big synth
hooks, alternative rock gestures and the
kind of off-centre beats that Warp acts
over the years should have trademarked.
Following his departure from the group,
frontman Tyondai Braxton has reinvented
himself as a composer of bold electronic
pieces that slot relatively well into the
minimalist firmament, even if they take
their impulse from electronica rather than
the classical school. He has worked with
Philip Glass, one of the guiding lights
of minimalism, as well as composing
material for contemporary modern
orchestras like the Kronos Quartet and
the Bang On A Can All-Stars.
The original version of Braxton’s
‘HIVE’ was performed at New York’s
Guggenheim Museum in 2013, with
five musicians seated in purpose-built
pods at the foot of the gallery’s famous

Braxton himself has described ‘HIVE’ as
a social composition. This studio version,
dubbed ‘HIVE1’ to differentiate it from
the live piece, suffers somewhat from not
being a collaborative effort. The album
is effectively Braxton solo noodling
around on various bits of synth kit, and
at times you’d be forgiven for viewing
it as nothing more than downtime
experimentation. There are points where
it sounds a little too clinical, leaving a
nagging feeling that it would have had
more of an atmosphere if Braxton had
released a concert recording instead of a
studio interpretation.
But there are also times when the
case for Braxton as a lauded musical
wunderkind is patently obvious.
‘Amlochley’, for instance. While this
lengthy track could initially be mistaken

for a malfunctioning ZX Spectrum sound
chip, once the layers coalesce around
the midpoint into a solid web of jerky
beats, bass tones and spiralling synth
noises, ‘HIVE1’ starts to seem more like a
considered, composed opus than a mere
book of sketches. The same credentials
feed through on ‘Gracka’, which was
written in tribute to Braxton’s wife,
though given the manic handclaps and
the erratic back and forth of the piece,
one wonders what he’s actually trying to
convey about her.
It’s the closing track, ‘Scout 1’, that
stands apart from everything else. Here,
Braxton constructs a locked rhythmic
cycle of percussive components and
earthy pulses, before adding ominous
synth swells and squeaky melodic
arpeggios until it all drops out and builds
back up at a different tempo. ‘Scout 1’
feels like the most complete realisation
of what Braxton set out to do with the
‘HIVE’ project, generating an industrious,
busy, interconnected ambience and the
closest approximation of the collaborative
energy of the original live performances.
MAT SMITH