Baths…Blake…Battles-tar Galactica. Something tells me Dwight Schrute would be pleased with Pitchfork Music Festival’s 2011 lineup. The band to zero in on for the time being is the former: Baths. He’s only 21 and has already accomplished much more than the right to legally drink: The L.A. native has two highly-acclaimed albums to his name and four previously as [Post-foetus].
Baths has been to Madison more than once, most recently at der Rathskeller in February performing with Braids and Houses (single-word, common noun band names are no longer an anomaly it appears ” sorry, Cream).
To the less abstract listener, Baths’ music sounds more defined in comparison to similar artists within the amorphous electronic genre. Perhaps most notable is that these ethereal, stammering beats are being likened to larger groups like Passion Pit or Wax Poetic – yet it’s just one person up onstage. Watching him move between one instrument to another, some of them possibly looking more like computer chips or robot innards, and creating a cohesive sound in the process should be an entertaining spectacle for those seeing Baths this weekend in Union Park.
Some have categorized Baths’ ambient, ghostly storms of sound as “chillwave,” but from what I’ve heard I feel inclined to call it the essence of life reincarnate.
Baths will be playing the Blue stage at Pitchfork Music Festival and is set to go on at 4:45 p.m. Sunday.
