As we rapidly near the end of 2007, a quick glance back at the past 12 months clearly shows US-based experimental/leftfield rockers Battles emerging as most likely candidates for ‘surprise breakout act’ of the year – witness recent sell-out Sydney and Melbourne tour dates, and near riotous scenes at this year’s Fuji Festival (apparently a security cordon was required to control over 10,000 spectators). With Battle’s rapturously acclaimed debut album Mirrored barely five months on the shelves, this stop-gap EP/DVD package promises to tide over fans salivating over the band’s imminent Big Day Out shows, with new remixes of album tracks Tonto and Leyendecker presented alongside live versions recorded at the aforementioned Japanese festival.

In its original album version incarnation, Tonto certainly manages to match preceding single Atlas in the mathematically-precise eight minute slab stakes, even if it doesn’t quite carry the same evil oompa-loompa vibe in its step, the group this time opting for a hypnotically flowing approach that threads repetitive, almost blues-stained guitar riffs through a tight backbone of circular drum rhythms, while Tyondai Braxton indulges in some characteristically out-there vocal maipulation that calls to mind Animal Collective’s twisted psychedelia.

While it’s certainly as immediately arresting on first listen as Atlas, it’s a pity that the two remixes included here fail to pack anywhere near the same impact. Kompakt signees The Field opt for a stuttering minimal techno reworking, and while it occasionally suggests Akufen’s inspired jerky fusion of cluttered samples, the end result pretty much serves to smooth out all of the original track’s character, with Four Tet’s analogue bass synth-loaded remix easily emerging as the stronger of the two, sending much of the original track’s instrumental and vocal elements spinning more or less intact around an energetic backbone of streamlined tech-house rhythms.

Alas, DJ EMZ’s reworking of Leyendecker doesn’t fare much better; while it certainly ably picks up on the hip-hop centred cues suggested by the sturdy John Stanier breaks that power the original, Brooklyn-based MC Joell Ortiz’s uber-cliched ‘I live in the hood’-style rhymes render it dangerously close to being the sort of contemptibly obvious stuff I’d never imagined would end up on the Warp label.

In this case, the real gold on offer here is the live versions of Tonto and Leyendecker recorded at this year’s Fuji Festival, which prove the group can pull it all off flawlessly on stage – indeed the two tracks are likely to be worth the price of entry alone for most fans, along with the accompanying DVD of music videos/behind the scenes footage (which sadly, I didn’t get to check out on my promo review version).

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