Chants encounter: Electronic music pioneers FM3

Christiaan Virant's life has been taken over by a small plastic box. Fortunately, he's happy about it. Virant, an American, is half of Beijing-based experimental electronic music pioneers FM3, along with Beijing native Zhang Jian. The box is the Buddha Machine, a cigarette packet-sized musical loop player that, in its original incarnation, rode the wave of mid-noughties iPod mania to sell more than 100,000 units.

Formed in 1999 as a minimal techno outfit, FM3 pretty much created the experimental music scene in the capital when, "after a couple of years, we got a bit weird," says Virant. Essentially, the band "left the beats out".

Since then it has released a string of critically acclaimed albums and toured the globe, playing to appreciative and increasingly large audiences.

But it's the Buddha Machine, based on similar machines that play loops of Buddhist chanting, that sets the sound. The device has been through four physical incarnations, one using music played on the guqin zither, as well as an iPhone and iPad app. From the second version, pitch control was added to the only other switch, which toggles through the loops.

There's even a version using the music of genre-defining industrial legends Throbbing Gristle. Originally produced in a run of just 500, the device has been used in remixes, art projects and films, and has even been used as calming music during childbirth.

The box has also taken over FM3's live performances, through a process that "looks like a chess game" known as Buddha Boxing, in which band members and audience members use the machines as instruments to create intricate compositions that can continue for hours.

"We used to tour with about 90 kg of instruments - guitars, zithers and so on," says Virant. "Then, after the Buddha Machine came out in 2005, we realised we could do whole gigs with the machines. You do the gig, and then you sell the instruments at the end."

Hong Kong audiences will get a chance to see FM3 for the first time since 2002 at Hidden Agenda on September 6. The band will follow a Buddha Boxing session with a set using more traditional instruments. "It's two ways of approaching the same music", as Virant puts it.

The following night, FM3 will play at CIA, alongside tributes to, and interpretations of, Buddha Machine loops by a variety of bands.

Although they made their name as an electronic outfit, FM3 have become mellower and more classical over the passing of time. They now use Chinese and Western classical instruments.

The runaway success of the Buddha Machine created some unexpected challenges, says Virant. "As with any musician who's had only one hit - and that's essentially what FM3 is - at first, you ride the wave and enjoy it, and then you can get frustrated that people only want that hit. It was always, 'Can you do the machine?'" says Virant.

"The Buddha Machine was definitely a blessing for us, as it allowed experimental music to become mainstream. But it also became a curse, because we were limited to experimental music.

"Now, though, it's become a blessing again, because it allows us to put more music out. Everyone lives in an ocean of music, so you've got to have a hook," Virant adds.

September 6, 8.30pm, Hidden Agenda, 2A, Wing Fu Industrial Building, 15-17 Tai Yip Street, Kwun Tong, HK$140; Tribute to Buddha Machine 4, September 7, 8.30pm, CIA, unit 7, Block B, 8/F, Wah Tat Industrial Centre, 8 Wah Sing Street, Kwai Hing, HK$140. Inquiries: lona-records.com