Friday, May 1, 2009

Live: Batillus with Bloody Panda at Jungle Space 4.30.9

Regular readers of JS-NYC will no doubt recall my affection for the Brooklyn Doom mongers that go by the name Batillus. They have played and recorded as a three-piece for a year or so, but recently added Fade Kainer of Inswarm (formerly Still Life Decay) to the fold on synths and vocals.  This show was their live debut as a four-piece and featured a billing with fellow doom-o-philes Bloody Panda. You may remember BP frontwoman Yoshiko Oharo from her contributions to the most recent Ocean material. 

Batillus set up in pretty short order, given the amount of firepower they have at their disposal. They are no Sunn)))), but they are loud as fuck and the small Jungle Space stage was definitely taxed by two bands worth of gear. Kainer's work with Inswarm and Ascension Of The Watchers is from much more of an electronic/industrial direction and Batillus have reworked some of the old material in that vein. The vocals are definitely from the harsher end of the spectrum and work well with the sludgy doom the organic 3/4 of the band. The new material definitely seems shorter than the material that comprised the sprawling early Batillus sets. Inswarm are going out on the road as part of Jarboe's band on her co-headlining tour of the EU with Nachtmystium. They are calling it the Mahakali Assassins tour. Check out here for the dates.

The Inswarm tour is going to keep the four-piece Batillus out of the live arena for a bit, but keep track of how things are developing via this handy link. I didn't see Bloody Panda's set. They were debuting 'miserere', a 21-minute opus that will be featured on both their new record called Phermone and on an experimental video collaboration with world-renowned dancer Yuko Kaseki. The record will be out on Profound Lord soon, vinyl is out on Level Plane on June 7th. Keep track of all things Bloody and Panda oriented here

R

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