Fsck is the second full-length release by Farmers Manual

Farmers Manual

Farmers Manual is an electronic music and visual art group, founded in Vienna in the beginning of the nineties. The core members of the collective are Mathias Gmachl, Stefan Possert, Oswald Berthold, Gert Brantner and Nik Gaffney...

, published in August 1997 on Tray (a sister-label of Ash International

Ash International

Ash International is a British record company and audio-visual organisation started in 1993 by Mike Harding and Robin Rimbaud. In 1995 Robin Rimbaud left to pursue his music group Scanner full time. Ash International is part of the Touch organisation, founded by Jon Wozencroft in 1981...

). A 2nd edition was reprinted in 1999 on OR (another sister-label of Ash International

Ash International

Ash International is a British record company and audio-visual organisation started in 1993 by Mike Harding and Robin Rimbaud. In 1995 Robin Rimbaud left to pursue his music group Scanner full time. Ash International is part of the Touch organisation, founded by Jon Wozencroft in 1981...

).

Album title

The album title refers to a command of the Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 operating system, where fsck stands for file system check

Fsck

The system utility fsck is a tool for checking the consistency of a file system in Unix and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux.-Use:...

 - a command used by system administrators if there is believed to be a problem with the file system (the term's tongue-in-cheeck use among the hacker subculture is referenced in the Jargon File

Jargon File

The Jargon File is a glossary of computer programmer slang. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Carnegie Mellon...

). Nevertheless, some critics took the title as a misspelling.

Reception

Fsck was hailed as an "abstract genre abuse", and compared to acts as Pan Sonic

Pan sonic

Pan Sonic was a Finnish experimental electronic music duo consisting of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen.-Music:...

, Merzbow

Merzbow

is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...

 or Photek

Photek

Photek is Rupert Parkes , a Los Angeles-based British record producer and DJ. He joined the drum and bass scene relatively early , and is still one of its most respected players...

.
The album was included in the "top 50 albums of 1997" by British music magazine The Wire

The Wire (magazine)

The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music...

.

Track listing

1. "363" - 5:05
2. "364" - 1:18
3. "365" - 3:51
4. "366" - 3:58
5. "367 mix" - 1:57
6. "368 mix" - 4:57
7. "369 fin" - 3:58
8. "370 magic leise mix" - 10:15
9. "Nuk (mix)" - 1:26
10. "371 adv3" - 1:05
11. "Frog dies in sunlight.aif" - 3:16
12. "I out" - 1:39
13. "Klopp01.proc (mono)" - 0:56
14. "Loop der.II.proc" - 1:29
15. "Untitled" - 5:37

16-98. "Inter #001 (Mono)" - "Inter #043 (Mono)" - 0:04

99. "Myself ii" - 5:05

External links

• Farmers Manual discography (up to 1998)
• Album page on discogs.com