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.

Fuck Buttons: Slow Focus – review

(ATP)

One of the more unexpected delights of last year's Olympics was hearing this duo's heady music being blasted out during the opening ceremony. Slow Focus finds the Bristolian noiseniks suitably emboldened. Their third album is denser, more heavyweight and grandiose than their previous offerings, Tarot Sport (2009) and Street Horrrsing (2008). Seven tracks reverberate with malevolence, often – as on Brainfreeze and The Red Wing – recalling the nimble dread of Boards of Canada, but with a more generous low end. Some might miss the urgency of Tarot Sport's beats, but variations within repetition is what distinguishes the best drone music, and Slow Focus soundtracks some unnamed disaster with time-lapse photography for the ears.