Fuck Buttons -‘Tarot Sport (ATP Recordings)

Ok, yes, they have an expletive in their name. How cool/ shocking/contrived. Moving past that…this is the sophomore album by the Bristolian duo of Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung who have built upon the promise of their debut album, Street Horrsing, released only last year.

The review of this album in The Wire magazine grumbled that when the album is on, you can’t think about anything else and when it’s finished, you’ve completely forgotten it. Well, when it’s on I love to ficus on it – and even before the album’s finished I can’t wait to play it again.

As championed by the Wire and other sources, there have been a number of acts of the last decade who have taken ideas of distortion and noise and gone places with them – see Battles, Yellow Swans, Liars, and Deerhunter for example. If you’ve never understood the beauty of the drone – I pity you – but here the drone goes down the rave-up. No, it’s not a startlingly original album (unless you’ve never ventured outside of top 40 radio), but this album represents the meeting point of the electronic drones of Neu!, the subversive experimentalism of the Aphex Twin and the sheer fun of classic rave.

And with tracks like the ‘The Lisbon Maru’, where ideas come in and gradually develop, this is great stuff. Not po-faced but fun. This year has seen the Animal Collective deservedly lauded for where they have gone with their Merriweather Post Pavilian album. And whilst this is never going to confront you in the way that the likes of, say the Hair Police, Wolf Eyes or Merzbow might, this is one of the best releases so far this year.

*****

Tarot Sport is out now.

Fuck Buttons – ‘Surf Solar.’ (official video)

Fuck Buttons -‘The Lison Maru.’ (unofficial video)