Album of the Week: Ting Shuo by FM3

Ting Shuo
FM3
CVMK

In 2005, the Beijing-based duo FM3, comprising Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, released their first Buddha Machine, a literal black box with a built-in speaker, a headphone jack, and nine ethereal (and yes, meditative) ambient electronic loops. The duo have said: "The Buddha Machine was never hermetically sealed. You could break into it, and … work out how the thing worked. What you could not do was replicate the process that led to its manufacture and therein lay the secret beyond the sounds."

Now, FM3 have released their first "real" album, a collection of six tracks, each between five and a half and seven and a half minutes long, whose atmosphere wavers between delicate loveliness and portentous dread. It's not "easy" music, designed for simple pleasure, but it settles somewhere beneath the skin, and stays there.

is a Chinese phrase meaning "heard of" - a clever reference to FM3's celebrated existence on music's margins. Everyone from David Byrne to Sasha Frere-Jones has applauded the duo, but they remain under the radar. called their music "confrontationally tranquil".

The music on is more classical than that of the Buddha Machine, full of haunting string arrangements and piano. The first track, , is arid and distant, creeping slowly towards the listener. But the album crystallises on its second track, , which pushes the listener into something much fuller, cold and near like a snowstorm, electronic blips dissolving like snowflakes on the skin. Like a surprising step in a snow bank, the emotion here is startling, and deep.