Tarot Sport

Released

Andrew Weatherall has spoken of how onerous was the task of listening to Andrew Hung and Ben Power aka Fuck Buttons’s electronic noise repetitions as he produced and mixed this album. But the results are sublime. Weatherall’s involvement in FBs’ 2008 second album was a stroke of genius, bringing the pleasure principle of the dancefloor into their sonic barrage, creating a beautiful gnosis for those who dive fully into the sound. So oddly accessible and affecting did he make it, in fact, that two tracks ended up being played to a vast global audience in the Danny Boyle-directed London Olympics opening ceremony. The album raises the tantalising possibility of what might have transpired if Weatherall had followed this rabbit hole all the way and gone into more abstract and experimental sound still than his usual fare. It wasn’t to be, but here he roundly proved that if he’d wanted to go harder and heavier with his own work, he very much could have.

Joe Muggs