The Field - The Follower

Kompakt: 2016

There's things worth talking about in The Field's fifth album The Follower. Things like “Axel Willner moves on from shoegaze, does proper techno” and “haha, I'm still dodging his Very Important Album, aren't I?”. I did something this past weekend, however, that's made talking about anything else extremely difficult. It wasn't even my fault! I had no idea it would or could happen. Nor is The Field at fault either – just unfortunate timing in this particular item cropping up in my queue when it did. I suspect if I don't write something about this event, however, it will fester even longer, somehow blocking my ability to connect fingers to keyboard. So I must do what I must do to move forward. I urge you all to skip the next paragraph, and rejoin me in the following one for my real review of The Field's The Follower.

So I went to a tech-house night on the weekend, as the dude who promoted the party said good things about the Berlin DJ he was bringing in. He always says good things about the Berlin DJs he brings in, but I was bored so went anyway. There I stood at my usual hunch just to the side of the front of the crowd, people watching while bobbing my head as I drank my pale ale in a can. Some decent deep-tech kept the vibe going, though nothing out of the ordinary, much less nabbing my attention in one of those “WHAT IS THIS!?” moments. Then, I heard it. A tinny, spacey rhythm, slightly off time, like out of the Golden Era of space disco. No, wait, it is from the Golden Era of space disco! Is it..? Yes, there it is, the cosmic 'aahhs', the triumphant organ refrain, and the hilariously warbly, ripped from pulp sci-fi pitched-down vocoder announcing the arrival of The Ultimate Warlord! Oh my God, I never thought I'd hear this tune out live, much less at a tech-house night. Do any of these people in the crowd know this track? They sure do now! Dammit though, that perfect context burned the song into my brain as it never had before. How can poor Axel Willner compete with such perfect Canadian disco cheese?

*whew* Okay, got that out of my system. The Follower, then.

The titular opener features some cool acid work from The Field before easing us into his usual brand of ultra-loopy tranced-out flow, where most of the album follows suite. Soft Streams and Raise The Dead get deeper in the dub techno zone, with the former a more abrasive than the latter. We all gotta' mellow out at the end though, which The Field does for the fourteen-minute closer Reflecting Lights. Another solid outing from Mr. Willner, then, and a definite have for those who prefer The Field's more techno outings. Unfortunately though, there's not much else to say about it, especially when one has The Ultimate Warlord imposing his Sword Of Light upon ye'.

The Field - Looping State Of Mind

Kompakt: 2011

It shouldn't have taken me this long to get myself another album from The Field, but you know me. A darling techno act, lauded by indie media who don't usually fuss with 'techno', and here's ol' Sykonee, giving it that 'Drake Pass meme' pose, all the while pointing with a smile at some obscure ambient techno item. Not an out-and-out rejection, mind you, but I can't help but let these sort of releases sit on the back-burner for a few years, the hype passing long enough to approach it with fresh ears, unsullied by what Very Important People tell me I should be listening to. Though I do wonder, why have I still not gotten Mr. Willner's debut From Here We Go Sublime? Like, for sure I've heard it (yay streaming), but it's been over a decade since it first came out, more than enough time having passed such that I shouldn't feel like I'm just hoping on a hype bandwagon.

And it's not like this particular album of Looping State Of Mind wasn't equally hailed when it dropped. Right, maybe not quite the same Metacritic heights as Sublime, but still a darn good response from the usual suspects. Yet whereas Sublime continues to be held in reverence, Looping has kinda' fallen the way of Yesterday & Today, simply seen as just another record in The Field's discography that ever so gradually evolved his songcraft. Maybe it didn't help that it carried the white cover art from Sublime, so it's forever compared to that one (sure didn't help Yesterday's cause). Not to mention Axel flipped the cover-art switch in his next couple records, sub-consciously making us believe those albums were of more importance than supposed retreads. Crafty and diabolical, those cover artists.

Ah well, that just means I get to enjoy it more for the album that it is, and not some Very Important, genre-defining, upper-echelon work of techno mastery (or something). And me, I dig Mr. Willner fearlessness in utilizing more instruments into his brand of 'shoegaze techno'. The bassline in opener Is This Power is one of the grooviest I've heard out of The Field camps, while follow-up It's Up There coaxes out a suitably heavenly techno loop-fest before changing lanes for a lengthy, funk outro (well, as funky as white Germans doing techno can get). Elsewhere, Axel proves he could continue crafting epic, escalating, wall-of-sound techno beasts like Arpeggiated Love and the titular cut till the end of days without a hitch if he so chose.

Fortunately, he has a little more ambition than that, the final two tracks mellowing things right the f' down. Then It's White feels almost jazzy despite being no less loopy than his other techno works, while Sweet Slow Baby treads into abstract territory, its overlapping short loops having something of an ambient drone tone about them. Makes me want to check out where The Field went after this. Eh, what about that first album? Man, that's all in the past.

The Field - Yesterday And Today (Original TC Review)

Kompakt: 2009

(2018 Update:
Haha, look at 2009 Sykonee, throwing around the word 'trance' so casually in this review. Yeah, The Field's music is far more trancey than most things in the realm of tech-haus, but that's always been part of Kompakt's manifesto anyway. The pseudo-genre 'neo-trance', neighboring genres taking on trance elements, is a better descriptor, or if you want to be really daft, 'shoegaze techno' (there's a lot of daft folks at Discogs, by the by). Also, where was I going with that Underworld comparison? Sure, Willner's rub of Sasha's Mongoose on The EmFire Collection fit the bill, but not so much here.

It's weird to remember that, at one point, The Field and Burial were held in the same regard among music critics. The proof is in Metacritic's own aggregation, From Here We Go Sublime and Untrue both still holding top honors for "Best Of 2007" music, even above Radiohead's In Rainbows! However, one is constantly referenced with reverence, even getting documentaries made about it a decade on, while the other does not. I guess folks felt The Field's brand of music-making was too singular for a plethora of copycats to emerge from it, leaving Mr. Willner to carry on doing his thing to this day with little fanfare anymore. So it goes for many techno heroes of the '00s.)


IN BRIEF: Evolution.

Axel Willner had quite a thankless task in replicating the critical good-will of his debut LP From Here We Go Sublime, so it’s just as well he hasn’t bothered to try. His sophomore effort is carrying on as usual, as though that top spot at MetaCritic’s “Best Of 2007” doesn’t exist. And why should he care? Yes, the album was quite good, but reading several of the reviews, you’d think this was the first time the rock journals had heard trance music. Then again, it wouldn’t shock me if it actually was the first time many of them had heard trance music, at least of the non-epic variety. Surprising such folks who’d forgotten that electronic dance music could actually contain endlessly looping lovely melodies doesn’t seem that hard in this age of electro-glitch (has it really been so long since Boards Of Canada released Music Has The Right To Children?).

So obviously much of that initial love affair has subsided, and the buzz on Yesterday And Today hasn’t been anywhere near as enthusiastic. Oh, it’s received good scores - as it will here - but now that Willner’s tricks are familiar, the press seems far more subdued in its praise. It’s a shame, then, that Willner has managed to bring some fresh wrinkles to The Field that will go relatively unnoticed.

Touring with just a laptop for his ‘live’ shows must have felt highly constricting to ol’ Axel, as he’s brought in a few extra musicians to the studio to liven up the proceedings this time out. Drumming journeyman John Stanier is the most notable addition, along with one Dan Enqvist, whom brings an assortment of backing instruments to the fray (bass, guitar, piano, vibraphone). A few more rounds out the cast and what we’re given is a richly textured sound that tickles your ears at several frequencies while maintaining that loopy Field structure.

Oh, still not sure of what The Field even sounds like? Think Emerson-era Underworld, though without Karl Hyde’s nonsensical lyrics. The titular track on here alone is very much in the Underworld-vein, with an infectiously groovy rhythm and spacey synth work sucking you into a lengthy trance-trip. The 90s comparisons don’t end there, however, as final track Sequenced is very much like early ambient dub as championed by The Orb, though lacking Dr. Patterson’s odd sense of stoner-humor. Meanwhile, The More That I Do could easily draw Loop Guru similarities, with its tribal stomp and repetitive chant.

These are far from nostalgic love-ins or rehashes, mind, but if you’ve ever paid attention to EDM from the 90s, Willner’s tunes will bring back such memories of the era when similar material was getting massive play from all the British DJs. About the only track here that escapes a 90s comparison is Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime, primarily because it’s a cover of an early 80s song from synth-pop act The Korgis; granted, it’s given a fine contemporary spin to fit within Willner’s sonic palette.

Somewhat annoyingly, and not just because it makes this album review shorter than most, Yesterday And Today isn’t terribly long. Sure, the six tracks offered are worth your pennies, and it certainly doesn’t feel like it ends all too soon, but when the musical ideas are purposefully limited, it’d have been nice of Willner to indulge us a little more. There’s almost a care-free jazz-fusion jam-band approach to these: most of them just start and keep going from beginning to end, improvising around the basic melodies along the way.

Yesterday may not be as initially, er, sublime as Willner’s debut, but it is a worthy follow-up. By adding extra musicians to The Field, he’s made his sound more organic and nuanced. Here’s looking forward to album number three.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic, 2009. © All rights reserved.