caribou & fuck buttons @ bowery ballroom, 3/28/08

even a casual reader of this blog will be aware of the fact that i am a superhuge caribou fan. they won the inaugural "band i blogged about most" title, clocking in with six individual posts, and though this is their first '08 entry, i've lost none of my rabid fervor for dan snaith's psychedelic electronica, which is why i returned to see them yet again. they have been on tour pretty incessantly since andorra's release last fall, and i've seen them three times since then, so i didn't think they'd have much new work to bring to the table, just their plain old awesomeness. but i was wrong - dead wrong. in their downtime (what downtime?), snaith and one of caribou's touring members have reworked all of their projections, and refashioned many of their songs - necessary changes when you hit the same cities twice in six months, but still pleasantly surprising. but the best change caribou could've made for this tour is the inclusion of the peerless fuck buttons, for whom, i wager, more than a couple people were there to see.

music aside, fuck buttons have been able to wring an extrraordinary amount of press from their name alone, a verbal vortex that no reviewer can resist (myself included). it's good that their name invites such controversy, because they don't offer much in the way of lyrical bones to pick - whatever it is that comes out of benjamin john power's mouth is definitely not distinguishably verbal. their name is as much a part of their enigmatic musical persona as much as their cosmic distorto-jams, and everyone has weighed in on fuck buttons's nomenclature (it sounds almost regal, doesn't it?) without coming to much in the way of concrete conclusions. well, there was no way the twinkly knob-twisters were going to explain themselves, especially without a microphone of their own. yet fuck buttons spoke in volume, creating staggering, deafening swaths of melody and static from itsy-bitsy instruments, subjugating the crowd (and making them dig for their earplugs) right after the first climax of "sweet love for planet earth." as far as i could tell (considering i don't have street horrrsing memorized), they played that album in its entirety, if slightly compacted. no breaks, no stops, all fucking awesome. as their set progressed, power and bandmate andrew hung became more and more involved in their admittedly limited show, their movements taking on a semblance of ritual, fierce and deliberate head-banging and body-waving, the music coursing through their bodies as it did ours. honestly, if you haven't bought a copy of street horrrsing yet, it's really time to do so, and go out and see the band: 40 glorious minutes of cataclysmic triumph in decibels; since mogwai isn't making anyone's ears bleed lately, maybe fuck buttons are taking up the reins. more power (and volume) to them.

caribou: awesome. the surprises (new projections and a couple drastic song reworkings) didn't really affect the show as a whole - they were exciting little morsels, making the show richer as a whole, but not really any different than previous caribou shows. however, that doesn't make it boring - it's not like i've been dragged to see them, caribou fucking rocks live, and they delivered an excellent show once again. the unison drumming is always exciting, and "skunks" especially benefited from it. "bees," as always, blew the place apart, and encore "every time she turns round it's her birthday" was, appropriately, the best part of the night. what set this show apart from previous caribou experiences was twofold, i think. they were blessed with a great soundman who really understood the band's nuances, but i think the most potent element of caribou's set was the influence of fuck buttons. interestingly enough, i felt like caribou was pushing themselves extra hard as a response to fuck buttons's egregious volume, and that energy was overwhelming. it could've also been that dan snaith celebrated his 30th birthday that night (technically, during "every time," as the clock ticked over to 3/29), but caribou were at the most jubilant, their most wildly exuberant, and the show was fantastic.

i went to four concerts last week - why?, crystal castles, del, and caribou - and the one i was least excited about was also, hands down, the best one. i expected the usual from snaith & co., and something cool from fuck buttons, but we were treated to a great night (all the better, from my perspective, with the loss of dan friel. parts & labor = gag). don't ever pass up the chance to see caribou.

"melody day" (from the pink room sessions)
pick up the new she's the one single from merge.

buy street horrrsing from atp.

leak of the week - street horrrsing

of all the awesome things about fuck buttons (trust me, there are many), the undeniably awesomest thing about the band is their name. it's got an attention-grabbing expletive, but unlike fellow swear bands, the harshness of the "fuck" is blunted by the benign "buttons," so their name becomes a curiosity, not a curse. and then the questions - what does it mean? is it an imperative? are bandmates andrew hung and benjamin john power commanding us to (as anatomically unlikely as it is), have intercourse with buttons? are they referencing the strange and awesome power of multiple clitorii? or maybe it's an ejaculation of anger, as in "fuck [those goddamn] buttons!" when you say "fuck buttons," is there an exclamation point at the end? maybe it has some relationship to their instrumentation; do none of their noisemaking gadgets have buttons? to tell the truth, i'm happier not knowing, because a) it really has no relevance to fuck buttons' sound, and b) i'm happy with the way i say it, with a great big ! at the end, in an extremely happy voice (unnecessary swearing is a joy), and with the hard "ck" and crisp "tt" bouncing off my tongue. i think i would like fuck buttons even if their music sucked, because their name is so much fun. fortunately, as i said at the beginning of this long-winded and rambling paragraph, their name is only the most awesome thing about fuck buttons, not the only.

street horrrsing is fuck buttons' first LP but their third overall release, distributed by ATP recordings (a label i had hitherto not known the existence of, but with some significant releases under their belts). a few impressive things about fuck buttons: they were tapped for an ATP performance after releasing only two songs, they were picked by pitchfork for their own ATP event (sensing a pattern here?), and, unrelatedly, they're totally amazing. street horrrsing includes all of fuck buttons' previously released material, but sounds fresh regardless. i hesitate at using the term "noise rock" to describe fuck buttons )though that is almost certainly the correct one), because i hear virtually no similarities between their sprawling, gargantuan sound and the often aimless and self-gratifying sonic squeals of other practitioners of that genre. fuck buttons are riveting, engaging and imaginative, musicians who occupy the coveted, and strangely tender, space that exists at the intersection of melody and noise.

i think fuck buttons' secret is rather simple, though that doesn't limit its quality. even while lambasting ears with unbelievable sounds, fuck buttons' noise is always, always musical. a shocking revelation, this. hissy, staticy, feedbacky, yes, but it is never dissonant, never atonal, never pure, alienating noise and volume for its own (unnecessary) sake. fuck buttons' careful mastery of the noise/melody merge not only makes street horrrsing one of the more impressive debut albums i've heard in years, but also means fuck buttons are the best hope for intelligent progressive rock since godspeed you! black emperor (r.i.p.?)

"sweet love for planet earth" is arguably the best song on street horrrsing, which makes it equally arguably the best thing fuck buttons have ever written. this nine minute opus that titled the band's first EP exemplifies the appeal of fuck buttons through the dichotomous juxtaposition of noise and melody, and is remarkably tight and succinct considering its near-epic length. the song opens with tinkly droplets of sound, the musical equivalent to ripples in a pond, and by its fourth minute, "sweet love"'s melody is riding a reverberating crescendo, pulsating with sonic fury, still accompanied by the tender melody that began it. in spite of its intensity (or due to it), "sweet love" has the remarkable ability to bring serentity and calm even as power screams indistinguishably, his voice little more than distorted vowels. like all of street horrrsing, "sweet love" is impeccably balanced, so that the supposedly brutal sounds are never deafening, and always exist in harmony with its more peaceable side.

the best fuck buttons songs are made using the blueprint of "sweet love" without falling victim to simple replication of its enticing formula. "okay, let's talk about magic" is another lengthy work (at ten minutes, street horrrsing's longest) that is ground in hissy volume and constant beating of drums, and accentuated by another dose of possibly-verbal bellowing, with the vocals mixed at a lower volume than the music so that they are merely a different-sounding instrument.

the only fuck buttons song i can readily identify by name is "sweet love for planet earth," and that's not likely to change. without identifying verbal characteristics, street horrrsing blends together into a 50 minutes of zen-like intensity, unhindered by a need for narrative exposition, climax, and denouement. it is constantly, cyclically powerful, a record that has accompanied me on subways, sidewalks, and sleep. don't bother listening to it with your friends; for one thing, they probably won't get it, and for another, you should really absorb it alone, and without interruption. listening to street horrrsing has made me a happier person.

"sweet love for planet earth" & "bright tomorrow"

street horrrsing is expected later this year on ATP recordings.