It would be easy—too easy, perhaps—to define Fcukers as a very New York band. First of all, I guess, because they’re based there: formed in 2022 by Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis, the duo built their reputation through years in different indie bands and gigging on the city’s late-night party circuit. Then, there’s their sound, which blends ’90s and ’00s dance beats with Wise’s disaffected vocals, channeling the lo-fi spirit of NYC bands like Le Tigre and the acts associated with DFA Records throughout the 2000s—most notably label co-founder James Murphy’s perennially influential LCD Soundsystem. (Fcukers even supported Murphy a few years back during one of his New York City residencies.)
Yet speaking to the pair after they land in London for a series of album signings and promo events—their debut full-length, Ö, was released last week—it’s clear that their heart also lies, at least partly, in the UK. “My dad was really into British music when I was growing up—he was playing me Happy Mondays and Stone Roses and Primal Scream,” says Lewis, who even spent a semester studying at Goldsmiths University in London and immersing himself in the city’s club scene. (That British club influence is all over the record, from the jerky UK garage beat of “Butterflies” to the infectious, cut-up vocal loop on “Play Me” that recalls Fatboy Slim.)
“I think New York and the UK have such a great back and forth musically, whether it was the Chemical Brothers taking their initial name from the Dust Brothers, who worked on Paul’s Boutique with the Beastie Boys, or people coming to New York and going clubbing and saying, ‘We should go back and set up [the iconic Manchester nightclub] the Haçienda,’” Lewis adds.
You can hear the frisson of influences on Ö, which takes the lo-fi grit of their earlier music—including their breakout club track, the common-cold catchy “Bon Bon”—and dials it up to something more maximalist. There’s their deft ability to cycle through a head-spinning array of genres—drum ‘n’ bass one minute, dub the next, and even finishing on a run of hazy, downtempo, trip-hop-inflected tracks—while keeping things cohesive, helped in part by their increasingly confident ear for narrative, as the album has been calibrated to mimic the emotional arc of a riotous night out on the town. Hence the soft, skittering “Getaway” towards the end of the album with its air of a comedown, and the lush, Balearic-tinged strings—like an audible sunrise—on final track “Feel the Real,” as Wise sings of being “in the penthouse, slipping away.”
While you can hear the influence of those varying genres and musical traditions, it also feels distinctly and uniquely Fcukers. (As for that name? It’s pronounced like the swear word, and was derived from a vintage FCUK hoodie Lewis gave to Wise soon after they started making music together: “I still wear it, but only at home,” she laughs.)