(ATP Recordings, 2009)
If there’s one negative thing you can say about Radiohead and their influence on the current generation of musicians it’s that Kid A inspired a glut of copycat experimental/electronic music to the masses. Then Animal Collective came along and did it correctly, which in turn completely flooded the market with their freaky, noisy clones. Between all of this and the DFA-ing of all things indie and mainstream alike the last ten years have seen an influx of synth, fuzz, and bass drum, and it’s been enough to make even the most dance-happy music fan dry heave.
I’ve got to hand it to Fuck Buttons though: they’re certainly ambitious. With some songs clocking in at around ten minutes the band has put together their sweeping epic, using the genre to tell a story rather than just make another boring dance record. What that story’s about is anyone’s guess– there are no lyrics, not even the distorted shouting from their debut. But what Tarot Sport lacks in prose it makes up for with poignant tonality and fervent noise.
Of course the band’s first record, Street Horrrsing, attempted this same feat with a sound some would call more “raw”; more industrial than ambient. The end result was a slightly disjointed work, with a bit less firepower than the band brings on their follow-up. Although still lengthy the songs on Tarot Sport are much more structured and less repetitive than on Street Horrrsing. “Surf Solar”, the first track, is actually pretty catchy despite clocking in at a whopping ten minutes and thirty-four seconds, and mixes it up enough to stay interesting throughout. By the time you reach the inspiring and upbeat “Olympians” you’re already sold, and when it leads into “Phantom Limb”, a more deconstructed throwback to their first album, it comes as a refreshing interlude. In fact the more you listen to this record the greater the effect it has on you; the last four tracks alone are like a soundtrack to a commute.
While that’s the single point of failure for a lot of records, and a big criticism I had for Street Horrrsing (“sure it’s great to listen to on the train, but…”), Fuck Buttons manage to avoid the issue completely here by making music with surprising emotional depth. It’s not quite a record that inspires a dance party; instead, perhaps uncharacteristically of the genre,Tarot Sport provokes the question: “how does this make me feel?”
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