Musique Non Stop | eMusic Electronica

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Fuck Buttons, Slow Focus Posted: 23 Jul 2013 06:00 AM PDT Attacking their maximalist bangers on their own Considering one of their crystalline singles (“Surf Solar”) was blasted at the start of Danny Boyle’s retina-singeing Olympics ceremony last summer, you’d think Fuck Buttons’ third album would be the Bristol duo’s go-big-or-go-home moment, the part where they get a Pharrell guest spot and a cosign from Kanye. (The guy’s been palling around with underground heads like Hudson Mohawke and Evian Christ lately so, hey, you never know.) And in some ways it is, only instead of pulling cues from co-producers like their last two LPs — efforts that were enhanced by DJ/remixer/multi-instrumentalist Andrew Weatherall and Mogwai guitarist John Cummings — Slow Focus is the first time Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung attacked their maximalist bangers sans help at their own aptly-named Space Mountain studio. As welcome as second opinions are when it comes to fine-tuning a record as off its rocker as this one, Power and Hung expand their sonic vocabulary considerably with no one around to rein it in. If you felt like their trance-inducing tracks could go on forever in the past, wait until you hear songs like “The Red Wing,” a mid-tempo mix of buzz-sawed synths, liquified drum loops and nutty disco nods. It’s groove-locked to the point where it could be performed live for an extra 10 minutes without anyone noticing. Or complaining, for that matter. And then there are the two towering anthems that Fuck Buttons ride off into the sunset with: “Stalker” and “Hidden XS,” straight-up jams that bring new meaning to horror scores and the group’s own gleaming take on techno, noise and experimental music. The only thing missing is the Speak & Spell-filtered screams that made old Fuck Buttons records sinister and satisfying in equal measure. No matter; tracks these triumphant don’t need any commentary.

Interview: Fuck Buttons Posted: 23 Jul 2013 05:00 AM PDT It’s a long way from the West Midlands to the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, but the cosmic house/electronica duo Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung — aka Fuck Buttons — have never been ones to mess about. Their cheeky name and sometimes wry track titles belie both the seriousness of their creative intent and the panoramic intensity of their music, which has surfaced on two albums to date: 2008′s Street Horrrsing and 2009′s Tarot Sport. Their third, Slow Focus is a darkly glittering adventure through vividly unknowable landscapes as menacing as they are seductively mysterious, and suggests John Carpenter and the LuckyMe collective as kindred spirits, while marking them out as fiercely independent voyagers. Sharon O’Connell sat down with the musical Olympians, now based in London, to talk about big sounds, big sentiments and why their name hasn’t held them back from big things.

How was it to have your tracks “Surf Solar” and “Olympians” chosen to soundtrack the London 2012 opening ceremony?
Benjamin John Power: It was Rick Smith [of Underworld] who approached us in the first instance and we didn’t even know in what capacity our music was going to be used until quite late on, so it was pretty surprising. But it was very flattering. Obviously we play live in places with professional PAs, but with something like that, there’s a curiosity that means you don’t want to miss the opportunity. And it was a real privilege to be asked.
Andrew Hung: How can you not say yes to having your music played on such a big stage? We’re interested in people listening to our music; we’re not particularly interested in people liking it, but they’re different things. In a physical respect it hasn’t changed anything for us, but it has provided a hope that we can make people listen to our music.
How did you approach the making of Slow Focus?
Power: A big part of what we’ve done since the beginning of the band is experimenting with whatever instrumentation we have at the time, and that’s constantly changing. What comes into play is mine and Andy’s tastes, and the filtration system all the ideas go through to actually form a track. We did start with a blank canvas for Slow Focus; we had no idea that it was going to evoke any particular sentiment, nor did we set out to make the record sound like it actually does. I think it’s detrimental to have a preconceived notion, because then you’ve already boxed the whole thing in. It’s nice to see it grow limbs in front of you.
Since there are none of the lyrical or vocal cues that usually indicate what a record is “about,” can you explain what’s at the core of Slow Focus?
Hung: It’s big sentiments — our songs aren’t usually about breakups or any kind of “human” issues — and awe. There’s so much music about love and relationships out there that has zero interest to me. Even though it’s something we all experience and it interests us in our day-to-day lives, it’s personally not something I want to hear about in music.
Power: It’s about things outside of that, or an amplification of those human sentiments, perhaps. I quite like the idea that an emotion might be on such a scale that you can’t imagine how a human might deal with it, and any idea of the cosmic in our music maybe stems from something along those lines.
When you’re building new tracks, is one of you on beats duty, the other melody — or do you mix it up?
Hung: It’s a Venn diagram; something has to satisfy both our tastes. There are plenty of things we’re both interested in outside of Fuck Buttons, but what is Fuck Buttons is our relationship.
Power: The things we decide are Fuck Buttons are just things that we agree sound good when we’re in the same room together — that’s pretty much the foundation for everything. We have similar taste when it comes to texture and odd sounds, so a lot of time we don’t even have to discuss them. We’ve been friends for a long time and have been playing together for 10 years now, so without even communicating verbally, we know whether we’re heading down the right track.
The new record seems to pack extra doses of menace and anxiety. How did that develop?
Power: What’s happening externally or even internally for us both doesn’t necessarily inform how we got to that place. It’s more about experimenting and maybe when we were jamming, that feeling just happened and it wasn’t one that we’d really delved so deeply into before, so we decided it was something we’d embrace a bit more, track by track.
Hung: Even if music conjures up feelings you don’t necessarily want in your life, like fear or menace or whatever, those things are fun to interact with if they have no bearing on you in the long term. That’s why discomfort is cool in music. Lately, Ben has described a few tracks as making him feel nauseous, and I think that’s great. I like feeling disoriented by music, too.
Was there any new gear that made a distinct impact on your aesthetic tack, this time around?
Power: There were a couple of things, but to name them would probably be irrelevant, because when I get a new piece of equipment, it’s more a case not of looking at the manual, but rather just seeing what I can do. I think that’s a nice way of using something, because then it doesn’t necessarily sound how it’s supposed to sound, and you’ve put your own stamp on it. That’s something we’ve always been very interested in. I’ve played guitar, bass and keyboards in rock-based bands and I’ve never had anybody teach me how to play anything. I’ve always just picked it up and taught myself.
Have you ever regretted choosing the name Fuck Buttons?
Hung: No. Initially, it might repulse someone, but I’d like to think that once they’ve got over that it becomes a symbol of individualism, of doing your own thing.
Power: Obviously, we understand the implications every time we put a record out, but we haven’t changed it. It’s something we have to figure our way around — or other people figure out their way of dealing with it. When we first started out, we didn’t think we’d need to even consider this “barrier,” because we didn’t ever think we’d be playing our music out live. We really had no idea we’d be playing outside of the venue down the road from the pub Andy worked in.