Saturday, July 27, 2013

Magic Number.









Music and the 
Rule of Three


Now that the universe has collectively agreed that Slow Focus, Fuck Buttons latest release, is the best thing to happen in instrumental music since Kind Of Blue, I'd like to explain hat tricks. Slow Focus has one. A series of three songs in the midst of a record that bind into a stretch and either overcome the surrounding body of work (which is usually also great) or define it is a hat trick. Like a rogue EP bivouacked within a great work, the hat trick can act as a fulcrum parting the album into a frontside and back, almost by transcending it. In the most uncomplicated terms, a hat trick is three really great songs in a row. 



On Slow Focus, it begins with 'The Red Wing,' the album's single, which morphs from a hip hop headbanger into a psionic scalpel opening up an eardrum. The track following is a paragon of the airtight machines Fuck Buttons craft and call songs. It's called 'Sentients,' and it feels like a birdcage elevator descending into hell. Fully realized here is the preciseness this duo deals in. 'Prince's Prize' finishes the hat trick, more directly synth laden and sounding like a Thom Yorke remix of Ratatat's post-Classics repertoire. A Petri dish swimming with the album's most imperative essence, a hat trick is born. Oh, the rest of Slow Focus is phenomenal. 


Last year's notable hat trick appeared appeared on Now, Now's record Threads. It stretches from 'But I Do,' through 'Separate Rooms,' and concludes on 'Thread.' The hat trick does not contain the album's best song, 'School Friends.' 


The hat trick concept was incepted while falling for Wilco's emergence album, Summerteeth. See the unmistakable 'Pieholden Suite,' 'How to Fight Loneliness,' 'Via Chicago' triple threat.  

Do you have a hat trick to throw in the mix or opinion on this topic? Enlighten us and enter the comments zone.

Courtesies,
The Brothers Rebel

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