Local Review: BATTERY — Dial Up

BATTERY
Dial Up
smoothie records
Street: 04.05.2024
BATTERY = experimental jazz + Frutiger Aero  + something I don’t quite understand

This album is truly a gem. At its core, it is an exploration of nostalgia for the ‘90s and 2000s, sampling the iconic AOL dial-up tone and the sweet ping of a Game Boy Advance that so often chimed beneath the covers long past your bedtime. It ruminates on the feeling of being outside of yourself in these digital landscapes of your youth, whether that meant the warm light of a smuggled GBA, the hellish choir of dial-up or the dreamy rolling hills of the Windows XP screensaver. 

The album opens with a tonal walk. “Dial Up” and “fish beat,” the first two tracks after the intro “Do u have Wifi,” are funky fresh and generally mid-paced. There are moments of sonic speed that hit you like a mainlined drug, but it remains largely reserved.

You get up to a run with “GBA startup;” the familiar tones backdropped by even funkier drums make your heart pump just a little faster. “saturn” slows you back down a little bit, its complex drums drawing you in and reminding you of who exactly runs the show here in terms of pace. 

When you reach “Big Blues,” “green mother” and “roseparade,” you are allowed a moment to breathe, to stand, to draw in the experience of what is around you. It feels like looking to the sky at the precise moment that the clouds draw back to reveal a brilliant golden sun. But your journey is not over; there are miles to go before you sleep. 

You are kicked back into high gear with “LAZER,” as you’re running, pumping and feeling the freedom of a wide open space that is yours to tear through at a dreamily quickened pace. You run and run and huff and puff and then… you get where you are going. 

The final two tracks, “A view through the window” and “Fabrica,” are your rest after the long journey, the eternal reward for your virtuous listening and brother is it beautiful. These tracks are swollen with emotion for the places you have been, the place that you are, and the place that you are going —- wherever that may be. 

Dial Up is really something special. It taps into so many different parts of what drives music as a medium. It’s fast, it’s slow, it’s complex and it’s never been simpler. It is a product of someone who truly understands the gears behind what makes music what it is and had the passion and the care to show it. 

If you really don’t have the time to sit down and listen to this entire album from beginning to end, do it anyway. If you REALLY can’t do that, then I would say you would be best suited to get a taste of this album by listening to the songs “LAZER” and “Fabrica,” as they sample the two completely different faces of the album and give the Cliffnotes of what you can expect from the rest of it. But given the entire runtime of Dial Up is a succinct 15 minutes, you should be able to listen to the whole thing, no problem. In fact, do it right now if you’re able. —Cam Elliott

Read more music reviews from local bands:
Local Review: The Madeline — Peaceful Uncertainty / With Senses Wide Open
Local Review: drunk in june — felicity