Unperceived Records is an independent boutique label focusing on unexpected, inconspicuous and detailed tones in varied genres such as modern classical, ambient, electro acoustic & more.
We value individuality as well as quality and texture in sound and everything around it. With our „handmade" mindset we strive to make each release a unique experience.

30 miles west of El Paso, surrounded by 3,000 acres of pecan orchards and only a stone’s throw from the Mexican border, the band Big Thief (a.k.a. Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik, and James Krivchenia) set up their instruments as close together as possible to capture their most important collection of songs yet. The band had only just finished work on their 3rd album, U.F.O.F. -“the celestial twin”- days before in a cabin studio in the woods of Washington State. Now it was time to birth U.F.O.F.’s sister album -“the earth twin”- Two Hands. 

In sharp contrast to the wet environment of the U.F.O.F. session, the southwestern Sonic Ranch studio was chosen for its vast desert location. The 105-degree weather boiled away any clinging memories of the green trees and wet air of the previous session. Two Hands had to be completely different— an album about the Earth and the bones beneath it. The songs were recorded live with almost no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever. Where U.F.O.F. layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt. 

Anybody who has borne witness to Big Thief in the wild will find songs they recognize here. Much of the album’s tracks (“The Toy”, “Those Girls”, “Shoulders”, “Not”, “Cut My Hair”) have been live staples for years. “Two Hands has the songs that I’m the most proud of; I can imagine myself singing them when I’m old,” says Adrianne. “Musically and lyrically, you can’t break it down much further than this. It’s already bare-bones.” 

Lyrically this can be felt in the poetic blur of the internal and external. These are political songs without political language. They explore the collective wounds of our Earth. Abstractions of the personal hint at war, environmental destruction, and the traumas that fuel it. Lyrics like “And the blood of the man who killed my mother with his hands is in me/ it’s in me/ in my veins” are genuine attempts to point the listener towards the very real dangers that face our mother planet. When Adrianne sings “Please wake up,” she’s talking directly to the audience. “Attention is power,” she says. “I believe you can manifest something on the other side of the world just by using your power well.” 

Engineer Dom Monks and producer Andrew Sarlo, who were both behind U.F.O.F., capture the live energy as instinctually and honestly as possible. Sarlo teamed up with James Krivchenia to mix the album, where they sought to emphasize raw power and direct energy inherent in the takes. The journey of a song from the stage to the record is often a difficult one. Big Thief’s advantage is their bond and loving center as a chosen family. They spend almost 100% of their lives together working towards a sound that they all agree upon. A band with this level of togetherness is increasingly uncommon. If you ask drummer James Krivchenia, bassist Max Oleartchik or guitarist Buck Meek how they write their parts, they will describe—passionately—the experience of hearing Adrianne present a new song, listening intently for hints of parts that already exist in the ether and the undertones to draw out with their respective instruments. It is an honor to give life to these intricacies. 

With raw power and intimacy, Two Hands folds itself gracefully into Big Thief’s impressive discography. This body of work grows deeper and more inspiring with each new album. While you listen, let your own two hands rest in front of your body with palms facing inward and see what power grows between them.

Musician & author of NYT bestseller Crying in H Mart

https://youtu.be/cOz-wM2vGgA
The band where the soul lives

Four years on since they dropped 2009’s blistering Tarot Sport, Fuck Buttons’ Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung are back with their third LP Slow Focus.

When Hung and Power get together a unique chemistry emerges and nothing else is allowed to interfere. As Power puts it: “The one fundamental rule remains: we are in the same room when we write. The rest is all fair game.” Fuck Buttons have never really stopped writing together in the time between albums. “The actual writing for Slow Focus began fairly soon after we stopped touring,” says Hung, with Power adding “If we've had any time off, it's been a few months, so though both albums might seem like two isolated events to everyone else, it doesn't seem as much so to us. They’re more like snapshots of an ever evolving mess.”

Fuck Buttons latest opus is the first record they’ve produced themselves; it’s an album that attempts insular resonance. Using repetition to create hypnotic and suggestive states, Slow Focus veers ever more wildly between these parameters; a whole mood-shift taking place to darker, more turbulent evocations – something suggested as much in the album’s title.

“Slow Focus seemed like a very apt title when considering the sentiment of the music,” explains Power, “It almost feels like the moment your eyes take to readjust when waking, and realising that you're in a very unusual and not a particularly welcoming place. There’s a brooding and almost violent theme throughout.” The album gained shape at the pair’s own Space Mountain studio, a place that was once used as a dairy (“It's actually very isolated from the hustle and bustle of London. With the courtyard outside the front of it, it almost feels like you could be in rural France.”) However, it’s not their surroundings that guide them; rather their connection and imaginations that drive the unique sensory assault we've come to associate them with. “The music comes out of the relationship. We've always felt that our music doesn't have a particular sense of geographical location attached to it, they say. “We like to think that we create our own new landscapes, and with Slow Focus it's a very alien landscape.”

As Tarot Sport showed an increased boldness from predecessor Street Horrrsing, Fuck Buttons’ third is a confident stride forward again, signified in their decision to produce the record themselves. Quite apart from a duo whose music bristles with an often brazen menace, the production aspect of it was one of cautious learning and a humble desire to improve their skills. “The writing process revealed how production was intrinsic in that process but what we did lack was the knowledge of how to record and mix those productions properly” Hung admits. “This penultimate step - before mastering - was actually the step that took the longest time because we had to figure out how we could do it.” But persevere they did, and Slow Focus’ production fully recognises every textural change, from thunderous viscera to dark techno and slow oozing melancholia, allowing the dynamic nuances to achieve maximum impact. “To an extent, we've used producers as safety nets in the past and, whilst it is useful to have that filter,” says Hung, “we've always had a very specific idea of what our music should sound like and so it became the logical step to take that we should do it ourselves.”

Fuck Buttons were flung out into the perception of the global public in 2012 when Danny Boyle opted to use their music in his breath-taking Olympics Opening Ceremony in London, after a recommendation from techno veterans Underworld whom were working with Boyle at the time. Now they’re ready to face the limelight in full again in 2013, with a string of festival dates, including headline slots on The Park Stage at Glastonbury and at Green Man, then later in the year - a full UK and European tour.

Fuck Buttons may have been away for a while, but Slow Focus looks set to put them right back where they were: as one of the most arresting electronic acts in the world today.

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