« Texas: February Shows | Main | Video: Kylie Minogue - "Wow" »
February 02, 2008
Okay, Let's Talk About Fuck Buttons
Fuck Buttons - "Okay, Let's Talk About Magic"
This track, from the Bristol, UK noise duo Fuck Buttons, is not as abrasive as some key words in this sentence might lead you to believe. At the onset it's basically just an unusually aggressive form of ambient, with radiating waves of white noise ebbing and flowing over a bed of stabbing synths. It remains at buzzing stasis for about a minute and thirty seconds before we first hear a voice. At first, it's low and muddled under the white noise, like a pirate radio signal in a language we can't identify. It soon switches to the their signature vocal mode, i.e. completely batshit screeching. But what makes this more listenable than, Wolf Eyes say, is the band's novel sonic mix. The demonic howling is held at a very low level, buried underneath the pervasive fuzz. The normal balance of things is almost completely reversed, with the screams providing background color, and the fuzz that might would normally do just that is given the starring role. It's an odd blurring of "quiet" and "loud" that resembles the efforts of Deerhunter's Cryptograms, perhaps succeeding in mingling the two within a single track to a greater degree. At this point though, all the beguiling noise is mainly amorphous. It's about texture, not structure.
It's another two minutes or so before the plot really emerges. Suddenly, a manic and industrial beat comes in. It sounds like a squad of robots, programmed to win a step competition at a small southern college. Here, we have movement at last. Taking the cue for change, the synth chords switch to a more overtly dramatic, nearly goth sounding configuration. The crackling white noise is still present, but the track's focus is increasingly on rhythm and melody. Even when the key tones begin to veer towards the apocalyptic, this is "noise music" that's not egregiously noisy.
It's hard to really put a pin in what genre this is. It's buried singing is inspired by hardcore punk and noise, but it doesn't really belong in that bin. It's post-"post-rock" and post-everything, really. If any one word could sum the sound up, you'd really have to go with hypnotic.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at February 2, 2008 03:41 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1412
Comments
And thank God those robots come in--I was about to put my head in my hands. Maybe it's just not a Sunday morning vibe.
Posted by: david at February 3, 2008 10:43 AM
Yeah, I wouldn't be putting this on for a long car trip with my parents or anything. I think it's much more listenable than your average "noise" though.
Posted by: Jeff K at February 3, 2008 11:03 AM
