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Fuck Buttons Perfectly Remix Moby and Wayne Coyne’s ‘The Perfect Life’

CHICAGO - JULY 19: Fuck Buttons perform onstage at the Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park on July 19, 2008 in Chicago. (Photo by Roger Kisby/Getty Images)

Two sides of Wayne Coyne keep coming to mind. There’s the showman, the guy who roams the confetti-covered crowd in a giant hamster ball and packs his videos with weird nudity. And then there’s the the guy who wants to bring you these sincere, post-psychedelic expressions of death, love, and beauty. Communicating a feeling, the Flaming Lips frontman told me in an interview published earlier this year, “is definitely more rewarding than just a bunch of bang bang bang, but the bang bang bang gets people’s attention.”

With Fuck Buttons’ newly released remix, Moby and Coyne’s “The Perfect Life” is finally using its bang bang bang to hit us where it hurts so good. The original version of the song will appear on Moby’s September 30 Innocents, which first got attention for its guest list: not just Coyne, but also Mark Lanegan, Damien Jurado, Skylar Grey, and more. “The Perfect Life” has been bang bang bang-ing hard, first with an eye-catching video casting call, then with an acoustic teaser, and then finally with Moby and Coyne’s oddity-filled “The Perfect Life” clip itself.

The original song is strummy, piano-splashed communal uplift in the mold of the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” or John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” and frankly, it can be hard for such positive vibes to break through without a little bit of bbb. But let’s suppose, just for a second, that the key line in the song is “we close our eyes.” That’s where Fuck Buttons’ remix comes in, a spacious, electronics-gleaming track that helps to show why we described the U.K. duo’s Essential Slow Focus as “based noise.” Tune out the extramusical clutter, and “The Perfect Life” is in sight.

Okay, maybe you’ll still just be picturing Moby and Coyne in Three Amigos costumes. Life isn’t perfect; all the more reason to stay based.

Fuck Buttons tour dates:

September 8 – Birmingham, England @ Institute Library *
September 9 – Manchester, England @ Gorilla *
September 10 – Glasgow, Scotland @ SWG3 *
September 11 – Nottingham, England @ Rescue Room *
September 12 – Leeds, England @ Brudenell Social Club *
September 14 – Dublin, Ireland @ The Button Factory *
September 15 – Norwich, England @ The Waterfront *
September 16 – Brighton, England @ Concorde 2 *
September 17 – London, England @ Electric Ballroom *
September 19 – Paris, France @ Trabendo ^
September 20 – Nimes, France @ Marsatac Festival
September 21 – Ruoms, France @ Heart of Glass Festival
September 24 – Rome, Italy @ Circolo Degli Artisti !
September 25 – Bologna, Italy @ Locomotiv !
September 26 – Lausanne, Switzerland @ Heartland Festival
September 27 – Innsbruck, Austria @ PMK !
September 28 – Vienna, Austria @ Flex !
September 29 – Prague, Czech Republic @ Meet Factory !
September 30 – Katowice, Poland @ Hipnoza !
October 1 – Berlin, Germany @ Berghain !
October 2 – Hamburg, Germany @ Hafenklang !
October 3 – Cologne, Germany @ Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld !
October 4 – Brussels, Belgium @ AB Club !
October 5 – Madrid, Spain @ Red Bull Music Academy Weekender
October 9 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
October 10 – Costa Mesa, CA @ Detroit Bar
October 11 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo @ Culture Collide Festival
October 13 – Mexico City, Mexico @ Corona Capital Festival
October 14 – Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
October 16 – Toronto, Ontario @ Wrong Bar
October 17 – Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
October 18 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
October 19 – Philadelphia, PA @ Voyeur @ Making Time
October 20 – Boston, MA @ Sinclair
October 24 – Sydney, Australia @ Oxford Art Factory $
October 25 – Melbourne, Australia @ The Hub
October 26 – Melbourne, Australia @ ATP Release The Bats
November 9 – Turin, Italy @ Club To Club Festival
November 13 – Amsterdam, The Netherlands @ Melkweg +
November 14 – Stockholm, Sweden @ Debaser
November 15 – Oslo, Norway @ John Dee
November 16 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Pumpehuset
November 17 – Helsinki, Finland @ Tavastia

* with The Haxan Cloak