AWmusic

The sonic experiment commenced… and closing my eyes, I felt like I was floating away from my home galaxy. The sound kept building and escalating into something one can’t quite fully describe without sounding too spaced out with polite confusion. It seemed like the soundtrack of one big climax where the end result, perhaps being the meaning of life.

Fuck Buttons played at the magically interesting social experiment known as Christiania, at the local music venue Loppen (translates to “flea”) I won’t mention more about this because I owe more words to the band instead of getting lost in the wonders of the local environment/venue. To summarize, when you leave Christiania, there’s a big wooden sign that reads; “You are now entering the EU” that should briefly suffice as an ideological tidbit of the place, but if you are further intrigued just Google it, you’ll see what I mean…

There’s definitely something elusive about the creative forces of the duo; Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power from Bristol, England. Seeing them perform live, being so close to their vast array of electronic equipment on stage, seeing their heads bobbing and legs pumping n’ swaying, something came over me. It was like witnessing the birth of electronic music. Feeling as if I had stumbled upon Joe Meek experimenting with meticulous madness in a home studio, or catching a Kraftwerk show at a time when I didn’t even fathom about owning a personal computer. With Fuck Buttons, I know I’ll listen to them in 2073 and it’ll still sound as innovative and enigmatic as it does now.

Their set powered on through with songs from their just released brand new second album entitled Tarot Sport (and also with enough of an homage to their first album Street Horrrsing, especially with a great encore of Sweet Love for Planet Earth) Included were three songs that caught my interest, imagination, and bodily movements to a strong degree. Surf Solar escalates like one long mysterious space odyssey. The Lisbon Maru, strange title eh? There’s nothing musically better it seems than when a band has an odd titled song that just screams out; “research my moniker for some added intelligence and deeper meaning!”… It’s a ship, lots of death, look it up after you listen to it well. Olympians makes me wish this song was officially requested by the IOC for usage during the opening, closing, and medal ceremonies of every Olympic Games (instead of the typically bad disco/dance fodder or stale classical music) from now on… as long as Fuck Buttons would reject the offer based on a not “selling out” stipulation.

The Loppen show was the second time that I’ve seen Fuck Buttons perform. The first was at the 2008 Roskilde Festival, with that performance still easily ranking in my top ten bands ever seen at Roskilde out of the four times I’ve been there (that’s pretty good considering the large amount of amazing bands that I’ve seen those few times) Something always sticks with me when I listen to Fuck Buttons, I recall the look of amused mystery that I’ve seen on the faces of the audience, a look of humbled curiosity and acknowledgment. That they are indeed witnessing something truly unique and in its own realm of sound, something that they’re never quite sure how to move to, but it doesn’t matter.

Fuck Buttons – Surf Solar
Fuck Buttons – The Lisbon Maru
Fuck Buttons – Olympians

When describing a band to someone, it’s often too easy and simplistic to just say a combination of a couple other bands that they sound like. Or worse yet, loosely throw around genre terms that have by now lost meaning. As with Fuck Buttons, I don’t really need to worry about such things.

Fuck Buttons is a lovely confusing, haunting, pulsating enigma of calculated noise and wonderment. That’s the best I can do, but if you do need a seemingly fitting genre term, I would use; “experimental”, “noise”, or “other”, and even this can be an understatement. Fuck Buttons are unique.

The band is made up of Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power. Their fun and bizarre creative ways forming in 2004 in Bristol, England. Their 2008 album; Street Horrrsing (yes, that is not a typo) is one amazing musical journey. The 6 track album (keep in mind each song is anywhere in the neighbourhood of 4 to 10 minutes in length, usually closer to 10) is a sprawling catharsis of continuous noise, that’s right, I did use the word catharsis, this band can bring out enough enjoyment and creativity for the listener to constitute the use of such a word.
A quick side note; I’m a big fan of album artwork, and I find theirs is astonishingly strange and a mesmerizing visual that matches perfectly with their sound.

I will observe that their album Street Horrrsing might not be the easiest album to listen straight through for some. The lyrics are quite an indecipherable sonic mess (I find it a case of some things are more effective left mysterious and unknown). I don’t think I’d be too well received hanging out with buddies having a few drinks on the weekend and using this as our backing soundtrack. Or maybe I should? we could get all serious, creative, and philosophical. I find this album is best suited to some quality alone time perhaps mixed with some deep reflection of sorts, or while writing about one’s travels during a bus/train/ferry ride. It also sounds like it could be used for some odd thought provoking film/documentary soundtrack, somewhere along the lines of a new edgy version of The Quest For Fire and/or Koyaanisqatsi.

Fuck Buttons and their album Street Horrrsing are definitely in my top acts seen and heard for this past year. I had the pleasure to see them live at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark this past summer. It was quite the experience to see two guys on stage to really become the epitome of the term experimental. Their show started off with quite a minimal audience size (considering Roskilde is one of the largest festivals in Europe). The audience steadily grew and grew with each passing minute as if some primal instinct urged them too. Passersby outside the large tent stage were being quickly drawn in by the band’s and their own sound curiosity. Andrew had an old original Game Boy hooked up somehow making some noise while Benjamin had an old Fisher Price tape recorder and microphone. He yelled his mysterious lyrics while biting down on the microphone. I moved in a “dance” of awe that I have never performed before or since.

Fuck Buttons – Sweet Love For Planet Earth

Fuck Buttons – Ribs Out