Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing

ATP

Fuck Buttons’ juvenile name is not easily forgotten, which is probably the point, but they deserve to be taken seriously, for this is an extraordinary debut. The Bristolian two-piece formed in late 2004 in order to soundtrack a horror film, with the intention of “making something that would be painful to people’s ears.” This they do, but there’s much more to Street Horrrsing than that. It’s noise music, yes, but not for ugliness’s sake – imbued in these six tracks (average length: over eight minutes) is a surfeit of depth, texture and melody.

Andy Hung and Ben Power build most of their pieces (‘songs’ just doesn’t cut it) slowly. Taking opener ‘Sweet Love For Planet Earth’ as an example, we are eased in gently with music-box twinkles before layers of malevolently buzzing synths are added. A tribal drumbeat ratchets up the tension and then, more than halfway through, some violently distorted, screamed vocals appear low in the mix. Never is the tension fully released, though, and after more than nine minutes the track segues into the spooky, brief ‘Ribs Out’. Three other tracks follow a roughly similar template to ‘Sweet Love…’, but just when you feel things might get tedious, ‘Bright Tomorrow’ shakes things up with its startling kick drum and hyperactive, squiggly electronics.

From the band name and album title to the artwork, there’s a real playfulness at work with this lot. Unlike de facto contemporaries such as Black Dice and Wolf Eyes, they stop short of being truly confrontational and instead provide a definitive answer to the question, “Can noise be beautiful?” You’re damn right it can. This is glorious. Chris Jones

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DOWNLOAD: ‘BRIGHT TOMORROW’, ‘OKAY, LET’S TALK ABOUT MAGIC’.
FOR FANS OF: DEERHUNTER, LIARS, BLACK DICE.

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