WED., SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
Post Spotlight to FacebookIn This Feature
Magazine Archives:
About the Album: F*** Buttons' Tarot Sport
by Andy Beta
On the strength of just a single seven inch, released on the ATP Recordings label, the Bristol duo of Andrew Hung and Benjamin Power quickly found themselves the opening act for Deerhunter, Liars and Mogwai. To say that the buzz grew deafening with their debut, 2008's Street Horrrsing, would be an understatement.
Despite the breakout success of Horrrsing, the duo didn't rest on their laurels. After touring the world, plying their monolithic sound, Hung and Power found themselves holed up in the studio with another likeminded noisenik: producer Andrew Weatherall. Their follow-up, Tarot Sport, is not a repetition, but instead a more nuanced iteration of their trademark white-noise washes. Tarot Sport expands on the duo's sound palette, grounding their wily muse in heavier beats, across a more expansive canvas.
eMusic's Andy Beta caught up with Benjamin Power on a quick tour through the UK to ask about the studio process, Mayan mythology and The Disintegration Loops<.
On "Surf Solar":
We obviously didn't want to make Street Horrrsing again, and "Surf Solar" was one we thought would go well at the beginning. It was immediate and hard-hitting, unlike "Sweet Love for Planet Earth" (the first song on Street Horrrsing), which creeps in and grabs you over a certain amount of time. We wanted to hit straight away. We could've done the whole "creep in" routine again, but we wanted it to be instantaneous. "Surf Solar" was the first one we got right in the studio. There weren't a great deal of embellishments. All the components were tweaked just right straight away. It was definitely a touch of luck. It was the first track that we finished but it's only easy in comparison.
On "Rough Steez":
It's been a short space of time between two records, but we've been busy, and this is what we do now for a living. We're constantly making artwork, scoring DVDs, making videos, so we kept up the pace on record. Andy makes video, I make artwork. We like to be in control of our aesthetics and every aspect of it. I think it's important. The cover for Tarot Sport, if you can draw parallels to the music from the artwork (which always comes second), there's a collage aspect to it. And I've been really interested in Bridget Riley and optical art.
Andrew originally made a comment that what we do is like "children playing," and I think that's valid in the sense that exploration in a naïve, childlike way is always at the forefront of everything we do. We have so much equipment that we use, and we're constantly finding more. The way we approach the equipment is, half the stuff we don't even know how it works, or the sounds it makes — we just have it all laid out in front of us and we explore, pretty much like a kid dumping his toy box out all over the floor.
I know it's an obvious metaphor to make, but that's how we go about making tracks. We've always just concentrated on the exploration; that is always intact.
On "The Lisbon Maru":
The real Lisbon Maru was a Japanese WWII freight ship sunk by the American forces. My granddad was a survivor and he escaped. He was shipwrecked for days, but he managed to survive. That track has these martial sounds to it. After we wrote that track, it became quite relevant because of the sound of the track, the mental imagery of it. It sounds quite "ship-like" to us.
I guess the mental imagery conjured up for the second album is slightly different than the first, in the sense that our first album had more singularity. There is a greater complexity of sounds for Tarot Sport.
"Lisbon Maru" was the hardest one for us to complete. Some tracks will take us a day to put down, but others change drastically over time to reach their finished state. We didn't have much time in the studio — only a month — so we were as prepared as we could be, with tracks and transitions ready, and the layout and structure as good to go as they could be. The things that really changed in the studio were due to producer Andrew Weatherall, who had such a good grasp of the music and what we were trying to convey in the music. He was on the same page as us and embellished the sounds for us and found space for everything. He was fully aware of everything. It was an intense experience.
On "Olympians":
I think "Olympians" is the most hopeful track on the record. It really works in the center of the record. I think it's the central focus point on the entire record. At the moment, it's our favorite one to play.
The important aspect of having our canvas as wide as possible stems from the fact that we're firm believers in the idea that the longer you leave something playing, the more you notice the intricacies within the sounds. That's what we wanted to embellish when structuring the length of these tracks. It's something we focused on. There were times in the studio, we'd listen to a loop over and over and over, picking out all these sounds that we didn't notice in the first place. Exploring these loops and the intricacies within them interests us.
Are you familiar with The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski? It is what it is — loops — but as you listen to it, it becomes completely hypnotic, a trance. I think it's fantastic and it's something we're really interested in. It's such a perfect example of the intricacies to be found in repetition and the like. You notice the negative space, when sounds aren't there.
This speaks to the space element — what's between all of the components. One lesson we learned from working with Andrew was the notion of real physical space, in that being away from the project is as important as working on the project. You get more of a chance for a clearer perspective, rather than drive yourself crazy with every detail. We could've been up till all hours driving ourselves absolutely crazy and he was the person to urge us to take walks, to have a bit of space away from the studio.
For "Olympians," we really needed that space. The actual sound of "Olympians" needed to be grand, yet we fought the urge to just keep on adding and adding until you think you can't add anything more. The restriction and space away helped us reach the point of "Okay, this is sounding good now. This is how it should sound."
On "Phantom Limb":
The flow of Tarot Sport could get comparisons to DJ sets; we want it to be constantly flowing and moving. There are more diverse sounds on that album that help create that sort of flow — which was tough to get down. Our songs all link together. The album itself is important to us, from the whole work to each individual track. We don't really push mental imagery on people — though we have our own, which we enjoy. I'm glad there are no lyrical hooks to impose or suggest to listeners what they should be thinking. We did want it to be a voyage, that was just as important as writing the tracks. That is what DJs do, but I don't necessarily liken it to DJs since that's not what we're going for.
On "Flight Of The Feathered Serpent":
The title is a reference to the deity Quetzalcoatl from Mayan mythology. That track has these "soaring" properties that we wanted to capture, like a creature in flight. It evokes those sorts of mental images. It's not necessarily about ancient civilizations. We don't push images onto people. But I was reading about the "largest creature of flight," and we were both inspired by this image of a winged serpent. We put it last, as the finale — we've been playing it last in our live sets for quite a long time now. With the material we have now, it's the perfect ending track; we send you out on a soaring high. I think it does a great job of doing that on disc, too.
Despite the breakout success of Horrrsing, the duo didn't rest on their laurels. After touring the world, plying their monolithic sound, Hung and Power found themselves holed up in the studio with another likeminded noisenik: producer Andrew Weatherall. Their follow-up, Tarot Sport, is not a repetition, but instead a more nuanced iteration of their trademark white-noise washes. Tarot Sport expands on the duo's sound palette, grounding their wily muse in heavier beats, across a more expansive canvas.
eMusic's Andy Beta caught up with Benjamin Power on a quick tour through the UK to ask about the studio process, Mayan mythology and The Disintegration Loops<.
On "Surf Solar":
We obviously didn't want to make Street Horrrsing again, and "Surf Solar" was one we thought would go well at the beginning. It was immediate and hard-hitting, unlike "Sweet Love for Planet Earth" (the first song on Street Horrrsing), which creeps in and grabs you over a certain amount of time. We wanted to hit straight away. We could've done the whole "creep in" routine again, but we wanted it to be instantaneous. "Surf Solar" was the first one we got right in the studio. There weren't a great deal of embellishments. All the components were tweaked just right straight away. It was definitely a touch of luck. It was the first track that we finished but it's only easy in comparison.
On "Rough Steez":
It's been a short space of time between two records, but we've been busy, and this is what we do now for a living. We're constantly making artwork, scoring DVDs, making videos, so we kept up the pace on record. Andy makes video, I make artwork. We like to be in control of our aesthetics and every aspect of it. I think it's important. The cover for Tarot Sport, if you can draw parallels to the music from the artwork (which always comes second), there's a collage aspect to it. And I've been really interested in Bridget Riley and optical art.
Andrew originally made a comment that what we do is like "children playing," and I think that's valid in the sense that exploration in a naïve, childlike way is always at the forefront of everything we do. We have so much equipment that we use, and we're constantly finding more. The way we approach the equipment is, half the stuff we don't even know how it works, or the sounds it makes — we just have it all laid out in front of us and we explore, pretty much like a kid dumping his toy box out all over the floor.
I know it's an obvious metaphor to make, but that's how we go about making tracks. We've always just concentrated on the exploration; that is always intact.
On "The Lisbon Maru":
The real Lisbon Maru was a Japanese WWII freight ship sunk by the American forces. My granddad was a survivor and he escaped. He was shipwrecked for days, but he managed to survive. That track has these martial sounds to it. After we wrote that track, it became quite relevant because of the sound of the track, the mental imagery of it. It sounds quite "ship-like" to us.
I guess the mental imagery conjured up for the second album is slightly different than the first, in the sense that our first album had more singularity. There is a greater complexity of sounds for Tarot Sport.
"Lisbon Maru" was the hardest one for us to complete. Some tracks will take us a day to put down, but others change drastically over time to reach their finished state. We didn't have much time in the studio — only a month — so we were as prepared as we could be, with tracks and transitions ready, and the layout and structure as good to go as they could be. The things that really changed in the studio were due to producer Andrew Weatherall, who had such a good grasp of the music and what we were trying to convey in the music. He was on the same page as us and embellished the sounds for us and found space for everything. He was fully aware of everything. It was an intense experience.
On "Olympians":
I think "Olympians" is the most hopeful track on the record. It really works in the center of the record. I think it's the central focus point on the entire record. At the moment, it's our favorite one to play.
The important aspect of having our canvas as wide as possible stems from the fact that we're firm believers in the idea that the longer you leave something playing, the more you notice the intricacies within the sounds. That's what we wanted to embellish when structuring the length of these tracks. It's something we focused on. There were times in the studio, we'd listen to a loop over and over and over, picking out all these sounds that we didn't notice in the first place. Exploring these loops and the intricacies within them interests us.
Are you familiar with The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski? It is what it is — loops — but as you listen to it, it becomes completely hypnotic, a trance. I think it's fantastic and it's something we're really interested in. It's such a perfect example of the intricacies to be found in repetition and the like. You notice the negative space, when sounds aren't there.
This speaks to the space element — what's between all of the components. One lesson we learned from working with Andrew was the notion of real physical space, in that being away from the project is as important as working on the project. You get more of a chance for a clearer perspective, rather than drive yourself crazy with every detail. We could've been up till all hours driving ourselves absolutely crazy and he was the person to urge us to take walks, to have a bit of space away from the studio.
For "Olympians," we really needed that space. The actual sound of "Olympians" needed to be grand, yet we fought the urge to just keep on adding and adding until you think you can't add anything more. The restriction and space away helped us reach the point of "Okay, this is sounding good now. This is how it should sound."
On "Phantom Limb":
The flow of Tarot Sport could get comparisons to DJ sets; we want it to be constantly flowing and moving. There are more diverse sounds on that album that help create that sort of flow — which was tough to get down. Our songs all link together. The album itself is important to us, from the whole work to each individual track. We don't really push mental imagery on people — though we have our own, which we enjoy. I'm glad there are no lyrical hooks to impose or suggest to listeners what they should be thinking. We did want it to be a voyage, that was just as important as writing the tracks. That is what DJs do, but I don't necessarily liken it to DJs since that's not what we're going for.
On "Flight Of The Feathered Serpent":
The title is a reference to the deity Quetzalcoatl from Mayan mythology. That track has these "soaring" properties that we wanted to capture, like a creature in flight. It evokes those sorts of mental images. It's not necessarily about ancient civilizations. We don't push images onto people. But I was reading about the "largest creature of flight," and we were both inspired by this image of a winged serpent. We put it last, as the finale — we've been playing it last in our live sets for quite a long time now. With the material we have now, it's the perfect ending track; we send you out on a soaring high. I think it does a great job of doing that on disc, too.
© 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC