Fuck Buttons @ Audio, Brighton 16.2.08
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Fuck Buttons @ Audio, Brighton 16.2.08
18 Feb 2008

Fuck Buttons are a band that tend to polarise opinion. While causing nerdish excitement in certain quarters, the electronic duo from Bristol, perhaps thanks to the fact that their jeans aren’t particularly voluminous and they use a tiny toy tape recorder with microphone to scream through, have also occasionally been dubbed the trendy emperors new (neon) clothes. However, actually listen to the debut album Street Horrrsing or see them live as I did at a ridiculously early Saturday evening show (damn micro-house club nights) and its hard not to be seduced by their abrasive yet enveloping formula.

With no ceremony they take to the stage and start a tinkling piano sample, the fizzling fuse that heralds album opener Sweet Love From Planet Earth. It’s a nifty stage set up, they face each other, sideways on to the crowd, over a large table scattered with a minimalist ensemble of small noise making devices. Behind Andrew Hung lurks a more sizable machine that blinks in the gloom to the deceptively pretty build up. Suddenly the bands distinctive buzzing synth modulations kick in and we have lift off.

It’s a nice trick and certainly exciting, playing simple yet strangely anthemic chords so hugely overdriven that they interact with the human organism on a microscopic level, vibrating and modulating each individual cell so that the body begins to float slightly, caught in the rapturous waves of droning distortion. Every now and then Benjamin John Power’s distorted tinny scream, filtered through the Early Learning Centre microphone he’s shoved in his gob, cuts through the barrage and adds a dissonant and thrilling juxtaposition to the fist-pumping melodies, like the crazed prophecies of a man who has seen the light but let it burn his brain, ranting sublimely.

Of course it can’t all be this good, otherwise we’d all have ascended to some higher level of existence by the end of the performance, and some of the quieter interludes do seem to be just that – interludes – distractions until the next slab of euphoric pulsating noize, and of course the fourth time you’re caught up in a Day-Glo sensory assault it isn’t quite as exciting as the first. However they add enough elements to the mix as the show goes on – live tribal drumming, a pumping four-four beat (they often prefer to let the arpeggiated synths speak for themselves in terms of rhythm), slightly half-assed jumping about making echoing monkey noises – to keep most of us attentive until the end. They play the album in its entirety, in the same order, with no pause between tracks, and then they abruptly unplug the machines and run off, leaving half the crowd applauding, half unsure quite what to make of what they’d just witnessed but glad that it was finally over. Its ironic that these purveyors of musical monoliths can create such duality in a crowd, but I'm sure that they, and I, had too much fun to care.