Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport [Album]

ATP Records

November 16, 2009, 12:27 PM

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by robinrenwick [More from this Author]

Buy Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport [Album] From Amazon.com

I first heard of Fuck Buttons way back in the summer of 2007. They were booked to play a gig in my native Cork, Ireland. I was intrigued by the name more than anything, and found out that they were the unconventional, experimental electronica duo of Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung.

One thing lead to another and I didn't end up going to the gig. I heard through the electronic grape-vine that 50 people turned up, went mental, and that 'Bright Tomorrow' was, as we say in Ireland - "a choon." I bought a copy and fell in love with Fuck Buttons very personal brand of aural assault. Actually, assault is a pretty harsh word to use in this instance. Fuck Buttons transcend genres in quite a sublime way. They manage to marry huge distorted stadium filling (or emptying - depending on your preference) guitar with even larger digital and analog synth chords. This, coupled with driving, heaving and rolling percussion [both electronic and organic], will set your pants on fire - literally.

Fast forward a couple of years and they have released "Tarot Sport." A full length, seamless mix of the most highly emotional electronica that I have heard in a long time. Fuck Buttons have an ability to create a truly immense wall of sound. That wall of sound is powerful and certainly loud but it always keeps at its root a very strong sense of purpose, emotion and clarity of thought. Not many artists in the world can do that, whatever the genre.

"Tarot Sport" is seminal. That is a fact. "Tarot Sport" is seven tracks that have been merged together to form a seamless and very coherent whole. Casting comparions and references to Orbital, Leftfield, Daft Punk and Prodigy don't even do Fuck Buttons justice, as they have managed to take electronica down a path that many will attempt to follow and that very, very few will ever match.

From the sublime 'Surf Solar' through the deceptively emotional, war-hero anthem the 'Lisbon Maru,' to the old-school, acid-inspired jam of 'Phantom Limb,' Fuck Buttons have created an album that will send ANY proper party into orbit, quite literally. Disco-biscuit munching kids, and K-holed elders will roll around the place wondering what year it is. I imagine puking, falling over, screaming, hollering, naked tribal dancing, sweat-drenched, bass-wobbling roofs and walls imprisoning heaving, throbbing masses.

Fuck Buttons have entered electronica folklore. Some will just not understand it, some will be turned off by the immense sense of it all. Others will just stand agape, mouths open and wonder at the inherent magic of it. Whatever your reaction, you cant argue with Fuck Buttons evolving from playing little clubs in Cork with 50 ravers to touring electronic meccas like Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Toronto, New York, Detroit, Chicago and London - all inside two years, and that is just their schedule for November and December!

Fair play, and much deserved I say.

Those that don't agree can F*ck Buttons.