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Music PROFILE
DRONE TECHNO FUCK BUTTONS The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 24 Apr
Stripped back to its raw ingredients, the noise of Fuck Buttons seems as if it should sound a lot more violent and abrasive than it actually does. Screaming death metal vocals, battering drums, monkey howls and warped electronics battered around by techno pulses? They are all in there – often turned up to 11 – but fused together, these elements create a warm, euphoric, pulse-speeding, adrenaline rush of something very beautiful indeed. ‘We always try to embrace the more emotive sounds in what we do,’ says Andy Hung, one half of the noise duo that is Fuck Buttons. He and the other button, Ben Power, met at university in Bristol where they were studying fine art and illustration, and started making music together in 2004. After signing to ATP Recordings, they went on to release their blisteringly good, goosebump-giving debut, Street Horrrsing, one of the year’s stand-out highlights. It included the exhilarating swell and growing roar of ‘Sweet Love for Planet Earth’, and shattering drone of ‘Bright Tomorrow’, and attracted a cult following. Last year’s
Andrew Weatherall-produced follow-up, Tarot Sport delivered more of the same blissful riot of tribal, celestial and frantic beats, and momentum has been growing ever since.
Both Hung and Power share a love of experimental electronica – taking in Aphex Twin, Four Tet, releases on Warp and Leaf, and marrying them with the droning, repetitive post-rock squalls of bands like Mogwai and Earth. ‘We’ve both had punk and hardcore phases in the past,’ says Power, ‘but we like to do something more playful with our own stuff.’ Onstage they use drums, synthesisers, lots of buttons, and a toy Fisher Price karaoke microphone (picked up at a car boot sale five years ago) to create throbbing, hypnotic textures layered up into a thundering climax.
‘It’s always good to hear that people find our stuff
uplifting, or joyful or melodic,’ says Power. ‘We find the whole process really exciting – making all our own videos and artwork; the moment when we’ve just finished a new song, or playing a very intense live show. We love the whole shebang.’ And what do they listen to when they’re not making
music? ‘Eh, actually, I quite like a lot of silence,’ laughs Hung. (Claire Sawers)
PSYCH ROCK WOODEN SHJIPS With Trembling Bells, Stereo, Glasgow, Sat 17 Apr Formed in San Francisco, California in 2003 – once a Mecca of sorts for the chemical adventurers and free-spirited musicians of the 60s/70s – Wooden Shjips are purveyors of droning psychedelica, so mind-bending and caked in searing noise, it plays out like it could be the result of some fuzzed-out, hallucinogenic seance.
up), followed by two standout 10"s, the band finally released their self-titled debut LP on Holy Mountain Records in 2007 and found themselves the recipients of critical acclaim they had neither intentionally sought nor expected. Continuing through this critical hooplah, the Shjips released their follow up, aptly titled, Dos last year. Spanning nearly 40 minutes across only five tracks, the album showcases the band's penchant for enveloping, minimal, Krautrocker grooves, but with the advent of considerably increased clarity.
Originally a way for guitarist/organist Ripley Johnson to To coincide with the release of the band's second volume
create a 'unique' musical project using a horde of untrained band members whose instrumental expertise barely transcended air guitar, Wooden Shjips have eventually boiled themselves down to a considerably more manageable, but no less memerising four-piece.
After a string of self released singles (which they planned to leave in libraries or on park benches for people to pick
of off-cuts and rarities – as well as a brief stint with newly- reformed legends, Pavement, including this year's All Tomorrow's Parties – Wooden Shjips are taking their acid- soaked rock to Glasgow this fortnight. So, for those still haunted by the spirit of Jim Morrison, or the litany of 60s/70s pysch-rock casualties, this is truly a must. (Ryan Drever)
MARK LANEGAN Occupation Whisky-soaked, gravel-throated singer for hire, arch rock’n’roll collaborator and all-round vocal misery guts.
Where’s he from, then? Lanegan first came into the public eye in the late 80s and early 90s fronting the Screaming Trees, one of the leading lights in the grunge explosion of Seattle and the surrounding area. His band were at the bluesy, soulful end of the grunge spectrum, as shown on their seminal Sweet Oblivion album, a direction Lanegan explored further with his solo material after the band split in 2000. Where can I hear him these days? Jesus, where do we start? Well, he’s released half a dozen exemplary solo albums, a back catalogue which this current acoustic tour will be delving into. But Lanegan is best known as a compulsive musical collaborator. He has released two acclaimed albums with Glasgow’s Isobel Campbell, sung for Queens of the Stone Age, gigged with Greg Dulli as The Gutter Twins and acted as frontman for English electronica duo Soulsavers. Amongst many, many other joint ventures.
And he’s miserable, you say? More kind of scarily deadpan, really. The List has interviewed him on several occasions, and never once got close to squeezing a smile out of the man. Mind, he’s not had his demons to seek, having had trouble with drink and drugs over the years. Last time we spoke he was housesitting for former G’n’R bassist Duff McKagan, which probably isn’t the best way of staying sober. (Doug Johnstone) ■ Mark Lanegan plays Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 26 Apr.
15–29 Apr 2010 THE LIST 63