Field Music
Sunderland and Newcastle. Of late, the spawning-ground for some of our more inspired musical limpets. And we’d not have anticipated it. Seeing as it once provided us Sting.
Field Music redeem that region, as do their scene-counterparts, Maximo Park and The Futureheads, from whom the outfit have once recruited members. It’s all about sharing.
Yet theirs is a lustrous, very different kettle o’ fish, all about the searing, instrument-swapping soul and sleekness of Stax, rhythmic cohesion, and conjuring fluid, classic pop in a vaguely off-kilter sense. The core is of three members; Peter and David Brewis (formerly of local almost-there’s, The New Tellers), and Andrew Moore. They cite Serge Gainsbourg and My Bloody Valentine on an equal plain as influences; their multifarious, eponymous debut solely confirms this, the quintessential, non-expected album of the year.
Live, they compel, yet subtly. Service them your joy. Or fall short of enrichment for times to come. Your say.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: OK, so it’s not an official site, so much as a page on their label website. You try and find better, alright? Tour-dates; sound-clips; a huge image; ya-da-ya-da-ya-da…
MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES: Home-page of aforementioned URL-space-webby-sitey-thing.
FIELD MUSIC – ‘SHORTER, SHORTER’: Tom Hannan notes the more lackadaisical edge of the band in this debut 45 of theirs.
NEW TELLERS – ‘RED SONGS’: we were one of the only bunch of sad sacks to review the prior incarnation of Field Music. It was alright, y’know.