Farmers Manual

Austrian electronic experimentalists Farmer Manual operate as a loose collective blending musicians, DJs, computer enthusiasts, and internet aficionados, for whom music represents merely one thread among multiple concurrent endeavors. Their persona remains as enigmatic as the intermittent signals emanating from Vienna studios since 1996, yet the recordings issued on Mego, Ash, and Ash’s Tray imprint have drawn a global following through their defiant rejection of dance-oriented electronic norms. Works including “FM,” “fsck,” and No Backup—the latter a CD+ release that marked Mego’s inaugural full-length project—have extended musical coherence far beyond conventional limits by overlaying jittery, inverted rhythmic frameworks with surges of noise and distortion in a manner akin to Panasonic and later Autechre. No Backup, the collective’s first album-length statement, assembles protracted disruptions of familiar rhythmic and melodic frameworks, whereas the vinyl-only “FM,” positioned as the analog counterpart to the compact disc yet sharing no tracks with it, presents over a dozen concise vignettes of minimal electro, several of which conclude in locked grooves. The ensemble has further explored drum’n’bass-inflected beat construction, most notably via the Tray 12-inch “Fsck,” while also staging multiple live internet streams through their site at http://www.farmersmanual.co.at.