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I SAW THE EGG

by battle ave.

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1.
ring 04:31
pray / stranger say my name / hold me up today / i can't see past this thing stay / a big cloud on the brain / circle round the ring / circle round the ring great / slipped off in the rain / how am i to blame? / help me find this thing mistake? / you ran there in a day / circle round the ring / circle round the ring don't play / big cloud on the brain / every time, i cave / but let's let this one stay
2.
temple 05:36
soul unfold / don't budge, get fucked, spit blood / while the vision splits the seams / hold me let me down / no word, no hurt, no sound / put it back into the ground / get it off my knee are you the temple? / no quit on me / my friends, my job, my dream / i know nothing comes for free / hold me bird, don't cry / my kid's gonna be alright / put it back into the light are you the temple? no
3.
fool 03:06
i wouldn’t say i was the honest one / but if you’ll say you will, say you will / and in the stream i caught a bug / sweet, suck on the blood you put the poison in the apple tree / but if you’ll say you will, say you will / and i got nothing holding me / love me honestly i am a fool i wouldn’t say i was the honest one / but if you’ll say you will, say you will / another piece of me rolls over / across your shoulders i curl up tangled like a silver wire / but if you’ll say you will, say you will / and i got nothing holding me / see me in the dream i am a fool
4.
core 03:33
meet me on the prison floor / i need something to keep warm / put my hand on top of yours / carry in the apple core
5.
nite lite 05:32
one friend turned around, holding hands with another one / “you got your shit right, you got it all figured out” / but i'm just floating down in the dark with the other ones i'm not a nite lite my friend the sun, she got stuck in the mud again / she's in the bedroom, hundreds of Colt 45's / but i'm a dark mark, rape of the lock kind of everyman i'm not a nite lite my mom's best friend put me up on a pedestal / “your worth is endless,” brisk is the animal mind / but i'm floating down in the dark, i'm forgettable i'm not a nite lite
6.
throwing bricks in an empty room / I saw a quiet crowd, gloom / I saw the egg crack, it was you / I saw two lovers running through and what can I do / when you're telling me to wake up?
7.
maya 04:25
last year you were the apple core / the bruise, the taste held in my coat for days / and then the truth / the only thing i ever want to do / is take your shape she moved away, maya last time i heard you call i dropped it all / the house, the fence the shopping malls / but i was held i know you sing for everybody else / but not for me i don't believe you, maya last year you wore the crown i knew your sound / i kissed the ring, the dressing gown / but what the hell i want everything you have for myself / i want it all is it so hard, maya? how do you keep towering?
8.
s w i s h 03:26
made my friend take the weight off my back / it was only a laugh you're my favorite, i'll bring you some smokes / it was only a joke in the river i bit back the urge / to swim to the bottom and never emerge on the couch shooting threes with the team / it was only a dream post up / roll back / switch up / just breathe / swish
9.
leo 03:52
leo is a friend of mine / high all the time / in the morning cutting pine / can't ever get my friend on the line leo threw their phone away / what can i say? / does it ever go away? / i never know if leo's ok michael is a friend of mine / we never talk, who has the time? / in the morning chugging wine / “are you alright?” “yeah, i'm just fine” now i'm just a hand in glove / go to the bank to pay it off / do we ever get above?
10.
tether 02:58
(tethering to the light) i sat w tom at the themed bar / & i thought to ask but i didn’t want to seem too forward, so i shut up / & now you cry when the boss comes on the radio / but that’s ok, tommy waves louis called me the other day / i wasn’t ignoring him but i knew what was coming, now i can’t turn away / & now he’s living sick & alone in the city / like a spot in history “here, between answer & nothing, i stand” / i read your book of poems & try to find my own power / “is it true the earth is all there is, and the earth does not last?” / yeah its true
11.
tower 05:42
you see me standing in the back of the room / i see a quiet crowd, and pass on through / i saw the egg crack, it was you i've been the moon over the edge of the town / and all i ever did was let you down / i saw the egg crack, it was you how do you keep towering? And i've been traveling forever / i'm not a rock, i'm not together / i saw the egg crack, it was you i don't need the crown i used to know / i'm always traveling towards the shape of you alone / i saw the egg crack, it was you how do you keep towering?

about

“Ring”, the first song on Battle Ave’s third full length album I Saw The Egg, begins with the warped cries of Jesse Doherty’s newborn daughter Esther while his wife soothes her. It’s a sound that sums up the thematic universe of the album, where rock star dreams of a past life are displaced by the beauty and patience of becoming a new parent. It’s an album that embodies the creative enrichment that comes with becoming a father while also highlighting the challenges in navigating shifted priorities and new responsibilities. Much like the keys that blossom over the baby’s cry, “Ring” introduces an album that embraces both chaos and calm.

“I have a ton of recordings of her happy, babbling, laughing… but there's something beautiful about that era, when she was newborn,” Doherty explains, adding that it was recorded after progress on the album was halted due to Covid-19. Doherty, his wife and their daughter were completely isolated from everyone, sleep-deprived and living on coffee and bad food from the school cafeteria where he works as an English teacher. “Life just revolved around Esther and the record,” he says. “It was this brief moment in time where I had to turn away from everything else.. I was forced to be reflective and insulated.”

Formed in the Catskill Mountain region of New York by Doherty, drummer Samantha Niss, and guitarist Adam Stoutenburgh, Battle Ave are a band that masterfully balance both tumultuous and gentle instrumentation. Their raucous side was showcased on 2011 debut War Paint, while a more subdued and contemplative mood was embraced on 2015’s shimmering Year of Nod. Now, with I Saw The Egg, their first full-length in six years, Battle Ave has found an organic middle ground; the lush textural dynamics of the album’s 11 songs boast a patchwork of angular guitars, gentle synths and loose, driving rhythms. Doherty was keen to explore how a song can be both meditative and dramatic, using loops to build hypnotic, repetitive foundations to undergird the band’s three guitars and his gravelly voice, which is always threatening to come apart at the seams.

Collaborating with bandmate Peter Naddeo, Doherty spent months slowly demoing and figuring out the sonic universe of I Saw The Egg. Once the blueprint had been mapped out, Battle Ave turned to producer Kevin McMahon (Real Estate, Titus Andronicus, Swans), who has worked with the Hudson Valley five-piece on all of their previous LPs. “He's the reason we sound the way we sound,” Doherty says. “His approach is all about pushing you out of your comfort zone. His studio is this giant barn with a reverb chamber in the grain silo, walls of old amplifiers, covered in Malcolm X and Bowie posters.. It feels like home to be there.” The atmosphere of the record is, unsurprisingly, the atmosphere of the studio - warm sounds bouncing off old wood, worming their way through mounds of old audio gear and around stacks of books.

The full band recorded the foundations of the album live in just three days. They then retreated home, just weeks before the country locked down, and began building the world of I Saw The Egg. For five months they experimented with additional overdubs: they wrote elaborate Mellotron string sections (care of bassist John Burdick), deconstructed Niss’ drum set to create the sound of a marching band, and reversed and reorganized dozens of saxophone tracks. “[Our producer] Kevin has this MIDI controller he built that looks like a tower of junk – a 6 foot tall pillar of plastic tubes, scrap metal, and wires he named Sheila – that he smacks the hell out of to produce those washed out, distorted percussive sounds you hear all over the album,” Doherty says. This collaborative, playful approach can be felt across every note on the album, with the band also working with guest vocalists Emma Tringali (Pop & Obachan), Hannah Mohan (And The Kids), and Laura Stevenson.

DIY indie-folk aesthetics, paired with glimpses of industrial instrumentation and bursts of feedback, mark Battle Ave as a band that can be both gigantic and murky, sweet and sinister, with an unpredictable and engrossing flourish. Made up of songs written at a glacial pace—one clocking in at 16 years—and those composed in 20 minute bursts during song-a-day writing workshops, I Saw The Egg paints a vivid sonic landscape, a pastoral scene punctuated by dynamic unpredictability. The band and producer McMahon find a seemingly infinite variety of ways to enhance, undermine, attack, and support the melodic and emotionally direct songs of the album. This is the sound of Doherty loosening the constraints of a preconceived future, instead embracing the uncertainty of whatever comes next.

- words by sammy maine

credits

released April 1, 2022

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mixed, produced, mastered by kevin s mcmahon
marcata recording, new paltz, ny
add'l engineering by frank mcginnis (5)
& peter naddeo (1, 4, 7, 8, 10)
cover art by krister larson
layout by rhys meatyard

arranged & performed by
john burdick—bass, fx, piano, voice
jesse doherty—guitar, keys, voice
peter naddeo—bass, guitar, synth, voice
sammi niss—drums, percussion
adam stoutenburgh—guitar

add'l:
frank mcginnis—guitar, piano
kevin s mcmahon—percussion, piano, voice (5, 11)
henry raker—saxophone
laura stevenson —voice (9, 11)
emma tringali—voice (2, 3, 7, 11)

thanks to our friends & families

** i borrowed some $ from friends to make this album. once that's all paid off, all proceeds go to catskill mutual aid **
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battle ave. Kingston, New York

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