“It feels really good actually,” Andrew says, nerve-free, on the album’s eventual release. “We’ve been working on it for a while now, so it’s nice to have something to focus on because in the writing process you have all these things surrounding it, but now it’s all systems go. It’s really good.”
Despite the first and second albums receiving tremendous critical acclaim, Andrew, and his bandmate Benjamin Power, weren’t feeling any pressure in regards to maintaining a winning streak with Slow Focus. “I think it’s really hard to anticipate what the reaction will be. It’s been very positive, so it’s pleasing to see. The feedback’s been fantastic, actually.”
On its debut week, Slow Focus managed to make a showing on the UK charts, especially in terms of physical (as opposed to digital) stock. “It’s the first time we’ve ever charted, so that was really exciting. We got into the official album charts last week. It doesn’t really signify anything. It signifies our work is paying off, I guess that’s it,” he reasons. “It’s good to see that fruition.”
Slow Focus arrived around four years after the release of Tarot Sport, with the writing process for Slow Focus spread across the majority of that timeframe. “It was 2011 when we started. When you start writing, that’s when it starts happening. With the last two albums, we didn’t really anticipate releasing anything on a larger scale. So they were written as we went. There were tracks that were written before Street Horrrsing came out that got onto Tarot Sport. But this time around, we started completely afresh. We started writing as soon as we came off tour and carried on writing.”
As the writing process went on, the frequency of the Fuck Buttons live show became increasingly rare, with a select few dates being performed in 2011 and 2012. The restorative balance between onstage and in-studio work is more an organic one, rather than meticulously planned out. “I think it naturally occurs. We’ve got into a stride now where we have a cycle of activity in Fuck Buttons. We write the album, then record it, then go on tour supporting it. The touring lasts for about two years or so. After that period, because we haven’t been writing on the road or anything, the music will change. Or I think that’s what happens, anyway. We do take the stance that we don’t want to repeat anything we’ve done in the past. Generally, we don’t need to enforce that because it happens anyway,” Andrew states.
Brainfreeze, the opening track on Slow Focus, starts with a salvo of fairly menacing live drums, whereas previous Fuck Buttons material has utilised predominantly electronic percussion. If it is a bold opening statement, it’s not an intentional one. “We feel our way through these songs. For that particular track, it felt like there was room for a live drum sound on it,” Andrew recalls. “There was no particular design to start the record off like that, it just felt right at the time.”
Approaching the tenth anniversary of their musical partnership, Andrew and Ben have retained a conducive songwriting partnership. “It hasn’t changed that much, actually. Usually what happens is that we get in the same room and surround ourselves with everything we’ve accumulated instrument-wise and play around with them until anything interesting happens. That’s always been the same for the past ten years or so.”
The process of feeling out musical sounds with an often-unfamiliar arsenal of soundmaking gear seems like an overly challenging way to create new music, but Andrew and Ben have harnessed the process in a way that manages to produce the goods. “If you’re playing around with something new, there’s automatically an excitement attached to that. But it’s not going to necessarily be something that works. There could be frustration. I can imagine there would be if you felt like you were good at using a certain instrument, but we don’t really get that feeling because we’re using new things all the time. It’s not really about a skillset, it’s about an exploratory sensibility. That anticipatory factor makes it exciting,” Andrew assesses. “Once we find something a bit dull, we just move on. We don’t really jam for hours on end, it’s usually around three hours or so. That’s really the limit of our writing for any set period.”
Ben started the solo project Blanck Mass a few years ago, while Andrew started releasing solo material under the anagrammed moniker Dawn Hunger last year. These outlets, however, don’t have a necessarily direct impact on Fuck Buttons’ material. “I don’t think it effects or influences the aesthetics of Fuck Buttons. I don’t think Fuck Buttons can exist without the relationship that Ben and I have developed musically,” Andrew says. “Speaking for myself, I think Dawn Hunger has given me confidence in my technical abilities. So that has an indirect influence, like anything that you do will influence what you do. Directly, it doesn’t really have any effect.”
Even though Fuck Buttons primarily create electronic music, the band isn’t really aligned with any electronic trends. Though the folly of trend-alignment can be a temptation for some, Fuck Buttons manage to process what is happening in the current climate and generate something completely different. “We listen to music a lot. What I realised personally is that when you start making music afresh is that there are all sorts of connotations that come with anything you make because there is a lot of music out there. With Dawn Hunger, I consciously wanted to make something that didn’t sound like anything I knew. That’s difficult, because the more music you consume, the more you know. With Fuck Buttons, maybe it’s just because Ben listens to a lot of different music than I do, it does seem to make music that you can attach anything to, and that’s been the case for ten years. I think at the beginning, it did sound slightly derivative. But very soon after, when it started developing its own character, it built its own momentum. It’s like a screenwriter for a sitcom talking about their characters finding themselves. We really don’t need to put much effort into developing it. It sort of writes itself these days.”
Last year, Fuck Buttons returned to Australia to perform a run of Harvest Festival dates. During which, the band previewed a small selection of Slow Focus material. With the album now out there in the world, and the Fuck Buttons touring cycle now returned to full effect, we can expect a greater selection of new album cuts in the live setting. “We like playing music live as soon as we’ve written it. Because the music comes out from a jamming process, we’re able to play the music instantly after we’ve written it. This time around there will be a lot of Slow Focus music.”
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
