With only three songs out, Fcukers made the cover of NME in 2024, back when they were still a Dimes Square trio whose name made everyone over 35 furrow their brows in disdain. The industry plant allegations were almost immediate (from X/Twitter: “How much did one of their dads pay you for this?”). Conspiracy only continued to increase when they clinched opening slots for LCD Soundsystem’s Knockdown Center run and Justice’s Red Rocks show the same year, seemingly off the hype of their Baggy$$ EP alone, specifically the two breakout singles “Bon Bon” and “Homie Don’t Shake.”
Now a duo, Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis approach Fcukers with the same insouciant nonchalance they started with (“We thought… ‘We’ll call it Fcukers, it’s a joke for us,’” Wise told DIY). They’ve built their entire ethos on fucking around, which could be where some of that speculative hate and resistance has come from. But their relaxed, borderline indifference to the potential long-term viability of Fcukers itself is exactly what made them so appealing to begin with, especially to the similarly disaffected lower Manhattan nightlife scene. Regardless of Lewis’s Vassar past or Wise’s stint in the Shacks, the pair had a scrappiness (using Mac PhotoBooth green screens or a city bus as video backdrops) that was simultaneously charming and intimidating.
Ö (pronounced “oo!”) builds off the UK garage, reggae, house, and pop influences that first resonated with Fcukers’ fanbase on Baggy$$. There’s an inherent simplicity to the title that mirrors Wise and Lewis’s no-frills approach to the project, but I was left questioning if the combination of their swift ascent and expanding industry network (like teaming up with producer Kenneth Blume (FKA as Kenny Beats), whose most recent work includes Geese’s Getting Killed) would result in a record that possesses the same brightness and intricacies as the Baggy$$ tracks. Where is the line between fucking around and actually finding out?
The album is framed as “a night out,” a kind of bell-curve setup that builds up to and down from one multi-song peak. Opener “Beatback” is the brash introduction to set the tone, as if to say, “Where there is Fcukers, there is the beat.” “L.U.C.K.Y.” and “Butterflies” are the anticipation, or pregame, if you will. “if you wanna party come over to my house” and “Play Me” hit an early high, while the sauntering swagger of “Shake It Up” and “I Like It Like That” carries that buzz into the record’s back half. The comedown starts with “TTYGF,” fading and mutating and blending into a laid back trip-hop haze by the time you get to “Feel The Real.” It’s a somewhat obvious cadence that works both for and against them, leading to a slightly flatter second half that begs for just one more full-out “Play Me”-level thumper.
Fcukers strike a balance between genre-bending intrigue and nostalgic, simple hooks. As straightforward as the single “I Like It Like That” is lyrically (see: “I like it like that / ‘Cause I like it like that”), Wise’s blasé falsetto adds a late-2000s dance-pop essence to the prechorus (“I need your love, can I be that?”) that’s remnant of early Zedd, while the dubby, reggaeton flair differentiates it from its influences.
Lewis noted in a recent interview that their lyrics lead with phonetics rather than narrative, which is how they ended up with similarly on-the-nose lines on Baggy$$—“Getcha getcha bon bon.” The beat and the movement override the actual words, the lyrical simplicity drawing your attention to the album’s propulsive momentum. If anything, the vocals often feel like part of the beat itself. The looping repetition of the title on “if you wanna party” circles the blaring synth alarm that eventually reaches near-deafening intensity, and only continues to ramp up until it breaks into “Play Me.” In all its hype and frenetic energy, the repeated “Rock rock rock rock rock rock rock rock” vocals feel like another percussive element, just like the wobbly bass and the near-tachycardic BPM.
On “Butterflies,” the Mario Kart-esque keys serve as the foundation for the trancey breakbeats and record scratches that bloom from it, making it feel almost like a twin flame to second-half tracks like “Getaway,” gently intricate and yet still overpowering. Wise’s penchant for reggae and dancehall comes through on “Shake It Up” and “TTYGF,” the former’s tinny synth stabs and resonant horn tones punctuate the beat. “TTYGF” (an acronym for “Tell it To Your GirlFriend”) goes even more downtempo, settling into a thick, almost swampy groove, with verses from Canadian rapper Skiifall that match Wise’s sass. She’s at her most anecdotal here, talking directly to a guy scheming behind his girlfriend’s back: “You come up and say / You say you’ll love me ‘til the world ends / Why don’t you just go / Why don’t you tell it to your girlfriend.” It marks a point of conflict, the only one on the album, which is also when the first pieces of the party start to crumble.
“Lonely” through “Feel The Real” mirrors the wandering comedown. At first, it feels like a push against it, not wanting the night to end. It has that Lady Gaga “Bus, club, nother club, nother club, plane, no sleep” spirit. The PinkPantheress-y bedroom pop bop “Lonely” keeps things light until the thumping bass enters with low-end vibrations, still carrying some of the night’s momentum. The energy gets a little more lush on “Getaway,” its fizzy breakbeats and echoey marimbas rippling as Wise asks, “Can you feel it now? / Are you getting what you came for?” Closer “Feel The Real” completes the circle, capturing that sunrise-Uber-ride-home feeling. The strings and atmospherics could easily soundtrack a late-‘90s or early-2000s coming-of-age montage with its Portishead-meets-Switchblade Symphony haze. The track, the night, and Fcukers are slipping away, Ö itself fading to black.
There’s an implicit lack of depth to a duo like Fcukers, in that we don’t really learn anything about them across Ö. But do we need to? Wise and Lewis have carved out their space as these semi-anonymous, cooler-than-cool figures, meant to be something of a blank canvas for party aspirations and sweaty club nights. Ö is the SoulCycle to Baggy$$’s Boiler Room, but it’s successful in that I can put it on and turn my brain off. Which, like the rest of the Fcukers mystique, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Listening to Ö feels active and passive at the same time, the kind of record that doesn’t ask much of you beyond being present in the moment. [Ninja Tune]
