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SXSW: Interview with FM3
FM3 is a Bejing-based electronic act made up of Christiaan Virant of Omaha, Neb., and Zhang Jian, who was born in China. They arrive in Austin this week to promote the release of their second Buddha Box, an electronic device that plays looping audio tracks, the same way another band promotes a CD release. The catch: The group’s newer music can only be acquired with the purchase of this device.
“Every one of the tracks in the Buddha machine is based on a different Chinese instrument,“ Virant explains. They record the instruments before editing them on a computer for placement in a chip inside the box, which is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. The musical loops range in length, and the last loop on FM3’s first box runs a mere two seconds. The device costs about as much as a new DVD.
Virant was classically trained in multiple instruments before moving to China as a student, after which he remained for 20 years. His bandmate “comes from a heavily Western classical background,” Virant says, while he feels influenced by “more of a punk rock/electronic music background.”
Jian initially focused on his love for punk rock and had been in some of China’s earliest punk rock bands before making history as a founding member of FM3, one of the first electronic bands in the country. In those days, the group had more members, played standard rock instruments (guitar, drums, etc.) and released music on CDs. The live techno that the band played, says Virant, gave way to “something you can put on and listen to rather than having to go to a club and dance to.”
Virant and Jian came up with the idea for the Buddha Box in response to the threat of music piracy. Virant also saw an opportunity to take advantage of the vast industrial potential of China, adding that “everything’s made in China.”
The band avoided U.S. tours in favor of a more electronica-friendly Europe. Ironically, the box took off in America, when they “got a good review from The New York Times and suddenly we were selling thousands of them,” says Virant. After this success, FM3 had to make the difficult transition from “two guys who are better at hanging out and smoking and talking about playing music” to businessmen exporting a product, he says.
Virant says the box is popular because “it addresses a number of issues that are really relevant now in American music dialogue. Questions about MP3 downloading. Questions about digital distribution of music, and questions about attaching value to a music release.” He says the box releases serve the “collectibility” of recording, and that CDs have made buying music less interactive.
FM3 will be performing “Buddha Boxing” at SXSW to promote their invention, 80 percent of which have been sold in America. During their performance, Virant and Jian sit at opposite sides of a table with a collection of multicolored boxes. They arrange them to create different patterns of sound, sometimes while a camera projects the action on the table for the audience.
(FM3 will perform at 1 a.m. Friday at The Hideout.)
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