Battles Announce First New Album without Dave Konopka Juice B Crypts For October 2019 Release

Battles have announced a new album titled Juice B Crypts, set for an October 18th release date. It will mark the band’s fourth album and first as a duo with guitarist-keyboardist Ian Williams and drummer John Stanier. Fellow bandmate Dave Konopka announced his departure last year due to “personal reasons,” as the band stated in a letter to fans. The album was produced and mixed by Chris Tabron, who has previously worked with Trash Talk, Beyonce, Mobb Deep, and Ratking. Juice B Crypts follows their 2015 album La Di Da Di.

They have also released the first single from the album, called “Titanium 2 Step” featuring No Wave’s Sal Principato from the ’80s New York band Liquid Liquid. Stainer discussed creating the track as it is in honor of New York City where they also recorded it. “We loved making this record in our hometown of New York and cannot be more pleased that Sal from Liquid Liquid is on the track.”  Check out the new song below.

He also discussed the album as a whole, stating Juice B Crypts is Battles untethered, Ian expands: “It’s about chord progressions, resolutions, returning home. Take that and throw it into a blender of modern electronic tools like glitching devices, or use melodic lines and take them and regurgitate them and pulverise the traditional stuff but at the same time try and retain harmonic relationships while completely smashing them up.” It will also feature collaborations from Taipei-based psychedelic band Prairie WWWW, Jon Anderson of Yes, and vocalists from Shabazz Palaces and tUnE-yArDs. Fans can preorder the album here.

The band will also be hitting the road this fall, kicking off in Europe Aug.14. It will then make its way down to North America in December including stops in Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Brooklyn, then concluding Dec. 11 in Boston, MA. See the full list of dates below.