No matter how far back you stand, how short you are, or which boot-wearing goliath is standing in front of you, you can always see Battles drummer John Stanier's cymbal. He has one that tall. And the ex-Helmet banger's tightly controlled beats are equally conspicuous throughout "Atlas", from the New York math-rock band's Best New Music-honored Mirrored. In their performance at this summer's Pitchfork Music Festival, the four-piece go on vamping for eight-plus minutes. They reconfigure their gear intermittently. Out in the crowd, heads nod and hands clap in unison. The tension keeps building. "What's up, Pitchfork?"

Battles: "Atlas"

Battles also, lord bless 'em, played Mirrored's "Leyendecker". An intensely spiraling intro again begins with Stanier, soon followed by guitar and bass from Dave Konopka and Ian Williams, fuzzy synths, and the wordless leprechaun singing of Tyondai Braxton. "People consider us this futuristic rock band, but I'm using pedals that I bought in high school," Braxton explained after the late-afternoon set. "I'm not using state-of-the-art shit. And the laptops people misconstrue as being a really heavy portion of the music when it's really just keyboard, keyboard sounds. So it's a pretty ghetto operation that looks very technical." More Pitchfork Music Festival clips to come next week. (Thanks again to Optimus for making these videos possible.)

Battles: "Leyendecker"

[original tracks from Mirrored; out now on Warp]