How does one deal with a burning, unstable, expensive, war-ridden world? Pilates? Longevity, looksmaxxing, small dopamine hits that are still just about affordable? All of them attempts to hold on to at least a little control.

The alternative: to do as 2012 did. Only now a little older – and more depressed. YOLO. If everything is bad and beyond your control, then everything is also a little beside the point. Do it for the plot. In times of deep uncertainty, escapism thrives – and with it a certain kind of sound. We learned that already in 2008, when songs such as P!nk’s »So What« or Lady Gaga’s »Just Dance« dominated the charts during the financial crisis. So: welcome back, recession pop.

When Shannon (»Shanny«) Wise enters the Zoom interview, it is briefly difficult to believe that her speaking voice really sounds just like it does on the band’s songs. Together with Jackson Walker Lewis, the man on bass and synths, she forms the New York duo Fcukers. Shanny seems to come from the realm of angels. Or from the smokers’ corner. Both at once. She moves gently above the band’s different beats, the only binding element holding them together.

When Shanny met Jackson through mutual friends in 2022, her former indie band The Shacks had already been over for two years. Much the same applied to Lewis, who had been part of Spud Cannon and meanwhile paid his rent by DJing in New York clubs. It did not take long before they realised what else they had in common: the urge to test themselves in new genres, and a certain fuck-it attitude fitting the zeitgeist of most twenty-somethings left adrift after the pandemic.

A shrug of the shoulders – and fame

The band came together exactly as one imagines it would: two people and the idea of making music that was, first and foremost, for themselves. Becoming famous was never part of the plan.

»We never thought we’d actually be doing all of this. We thought maybe we’d play one show, just for our friends. We had no plan. From the start, the project was set up to be just for fun. We only wanted to make music and have a good time. That’s what we want to do, that’s what we ourselves want to go out and party to.«

That is reflected in the band name as well. In American broadcasting there are the magical “seven dirty words” that should not be said if a radio station wants to avoid trouble with the Federal Communications Commission. One of those words is “»fuck«. Music industry? Whatever.

And yet, despite that mindset, a great deal has happened for Fcukers since they formed. They booked their first show shortly after finishing their first song, »Mothers« – and in none other than the notorious Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, a 280-cap venue where artists such as SZA and Billie Eilish also played early on. Then came DMs asking for more music, support shows for LCD Soundsystem and Tame Impala, two Boiler Room sets, their first EP Baggy$$ in 2024, and now, with Ö, finally the long-awaited debut album.

»A word or a sentence would have been too much. Everything has already been said. Everything has already been done. So we thought: what if it were a symbol, or a letter? Ö is, in a way, a globe, the world. This album is for the world.«

In fact, Ö had not even been planned. Fcukers had actually been working – desperately, and under pressure from label expectations and fame – on a different project when they met Kenneth Blume in Los Angeles. Blume, better known as KennyBeats, had until now been known chiefly for his rap productions (JPEGMAFIA, Vince Staples, Rico Nasty, Freddie Gibbs, among others), but the chemistry must have been right, because within a tight two weeks, and together with Dylan Brady (100 gecs), the entire debut album came into being.

»Working with [Kenny] really helps Jackson and me write very quickly. If it were just the two of us, we’d spend two hours wondering whether the kick drum sounds right. With Kenny, we don’t have to think about that – he’s got so much experience that we know it’s going to be good.«

Hooray, hooray, the world is ending

That lightness is palpable. In Shanny’s vocals, which lend every song a certain nonchalance, and in the beats themselves as well. There are few things music journalists love more than complicated, overlong subgenre labels. Soft jungle beats, trip-hop meeting Britpop, bass-heavy lo-fi sounds – all of these are elements that make up the sound of Fcukers, and yet none of them defines it sufficiently. In the end, it is more of a vibe that describes them best: cigarette in mouth (important: not a vape), wired headphones, hungover and late, old iPhone 6, baggy trousers, champagne in my cornflakes.

If what remains to us are brief moments of release and good music, then with Ö Fcukers have at least provided the right soundtrack. Asked what else we can expect from the band this year, Shanny answers without hesitation: lots of concerts, lots of parties, lots of fun.