When does edgy and cool become suspiciously try-hard and contrived? This is the question that the more discerning listener may battle with while engaging with New York dance darlings Fcukers’ debut album. Ö is often exhilarating, at times frustrating, and occasionally underwhelming. The duo of Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis project an air of nonchalance that teeters towards the overly performative at times, but there’s also a naivety here that’s often captivating.
Ö is dance music for those with attention deficit conditions as all bar one of the tracks are under three minutes long (“Feel the Real” clocks in at a mighty 3:01). This in itself is fine until you realise that it may not be an entirely creative choice and more the fact that Fcukers don’t know how to employ the circle of fifths in their songwriting. There are no expansive progressions beyond verse-chorus-verse hooks. All 11 tracks on Ö stand up on their own accord, but they just don’t gel together all that well as a complete body of work. As each song pauses briefly before the next, there’s a feeling that the record would have been a triumph if they’d taken the bold choice of mixing each track into the other, melding rather than compartmentalising.
The opening tracks of “Beatback” and “Lucky” set the template straight off the bat – we’re in earworm territory with breezy vocals, warped synths, and sharp beats that’ll get any dancefloor moving but there’s also a sterility to the mix that suggests they’re aiming more at a pop crowd. The basslines are present and correct, but too low in the mix which has an overall shine to it when you want it to be grimier. “Lucky” sounds like a Zongamin track without the twisted sensibilities that made him an essential but underrated artist (whose last album in 2018 was called O!, by the way…).
The production work on Ö by Kenneth Blume (previously known as Kenny Beats) hinders any sense of dynamism or frenetic urgency that was there on Fcukers’ early releases and this is the one great shame of the record as a whole. It’s not trashy enough to be daft or punk, it’s too polished and lacking the required brashness to be electroclash, and it’s too laboured in places to be hyperpop. And yet… and yet there’s still something really endearing at the heart of Ö that feels wide-eyed and out of place with the persona the duo are pushing.
“Butterflies” takes its cue from UK garage and it’s at this point in the record that you realise that this is nothing but a really lovely pop album. Preconception built from numerous press releases and the general stirrings of the hype machine can be a hell of a thing. This isn’t a sophisticated, sleazy album made by outsiders. It’s product – pure and simple. It’s a melting pot that nods at a range of styles, artists, and cultural movements. It is, to borrow the phrase from subcultural theorist Ted Polhemus, the supermarket of styles. Beats and hooks taken from the shelf, repackaged, and sold back to us as something new, something edgy and exciting.
Both “if you wanna party come over to my house” and “Play Me” have a (non-Charli XCX) brattish quality to them, an aloof pair of songs built on one idea and one idea only. The constant repetition on each could highlight the social media zeitgeist where nothing that’s valued in that sphere has meaning beyond itself. Attention spans influenced by algorithms don’t require depth, or even feeling – just ‘the point’ being addressed as soon as possible. And the fact that “Play Me” has a background vocal line that sounds like it’s delivered by M dot R (a reference maybe only our UK based readers will know) doesn’t do it any favours.
“I Like It Like That” has an airy feel, with a soundsystem style vocal intro that feels like it’s lifted from Leftfield’s seminal album Leftism which is carried into “TTYGF” which has the album’s best production work even though it’s the worst song.
The influences present on the record could be read as a postmodern aural smorgasbord, a culture vulture cash grab, or simply artists wearing their lineage on their sleeves. It feels as though Fcukers are taking us through the favourite parts of their record collection, and Ö is merely the sum of its acculturated parts. By the time “Getaway” comes around you get the sense that Fcukers have listened to Lamb’s What Sound? but also there’s a smart game being played as the references are perhaps too niche and too old for Fcukers’ core audience.
The charm – and there is plenty of it – of Ö may well be accidental. Fcukers aren’t the cutting edge new kids on the block they want you to think they are. They’re a nostalgia trip of intertextual references. Ö will no doubt frustrate some, and delight many others. It is, after all, just a ride that doesn’t need to be taken too seriously.
