While the underground sets itself up as a small alternative to the manufacturing process of the mainstream, it is inevitable that formulæ are established and slavishly followed within this ‘alternative’ as often as they are in the mainstream. So, while I’m sure the average mainstream audience would find the Buttons EP by fm ‘weird’, anyone who has had even a passing interest in hypnagogic strands over the last 5 years or so would have already heard much of what has been created here.
Which is not to say that the music is in any way bad, just that I don’t quite yet hear how fm is to stand out amongst the large wave of down tempo synth moods with IDM influenced rhythms that bedroom producers have been throwing up for some time now. Indicative of the problem is closing track ‘Which House’ whose name, had the sounds of the previous tracks not already done so, really makes it obvious. Low energy FM synthesised blips bouncing around the soundspace, synth washes recorded with a hint of overdriven signal, disembodied vocal samples time stretched and pitch bent, with stuttering yet simple, low bit rate drum patterns, all covered with spacious reverb. It’s a kind of glossy lo-fi that is nice to listen to while it’s there, but doesn’t lodge in the brain for later recall, its indirect melodic noodling having little chance of distinguishing it from a thousand other hypnagogues the world over.
fm clearly knows his way around a laptop and Buttons shows that he is also up on current underground modes. But the EP feels more like reportage of what he’s heard on the internet, too bound to a single substrand, rather than a listen to what an individual artist can create by responding to their world.
Adrian Elmer
