Yesterday I had seldom (if ever) heard of The Field. I might maybe have a remix of a Foals' song, but that's it. So I basically didn't know the band. And today, I guess I know a little more about them (at least I'm not as ignorant as I used to be).
My Field experience goes back to Nov. 19, so this post isn't really following up on my agenda, but still, I wanted to share my pictures with you.
The Field is a Swedish artist from Stockholm, Sweden (I know... I'm into Scandinavians lately). I guess we can define his/their genre (btw, they always speak about The Field using the "third person", although they were 4 on stage - but I guess he's the artist, and the others just add some musical touch to his samples and beats), anyway, back to the genre, which is classified as "minimal techno", beats me, but I guess that's the closest it gets to.
The picture above really translates the mood of their show: soft, often romantic but experimental. Like an artist painting a live canvas, he creates his music live for his audience. In an interview I read online for Pitchfork, he stated that the process of his musical creation "starts when I hear there's a song I want to make something else of". He samples it, looks for bits and pieces that he really likes and tries to rearrange them. "It could go backward, forwards, sideways, everywhere". He doubles it, loops some new things, new instruments but of course the beat. Then he mixes it live. Always.
"That's why sometimes you hear this loud burst of stuff. And it sounds like a mistake. That's just me mixing everything. I mix all the elements live to two channels. I have no return. I can't get it back... or I'd have to rearrange the whole song in a way."
What really hit me was the complete lack of vocals (I'm a huge vocals fan since I'm mainly into rock and indie bands with your traditional guitar/bass/drum players and, of course, the lead singer), but I still like electronic music as well... electronic music with vocals (or any kind of speech/text/spoken message). I'm not saying some chick should be singing some lousy lyrics on some "dancesque/bassesque" music, but still, when there's no vocals, I tend to get bored pretty quickly.
The mood & atmosphere of their show was therefore pretty mellow. Which I tend to like once in a while (not to mention that on this particular day it felt perfect). There wasn't a big crowd (maybe the weekday effect?), but everyone seemed to be exhilarated by his (his real name is Alex Willner - the guy with the fisherman beanie on the pictures) way of sampling sections of songs into simple elements. In the end, the hypnotic repetition of his lo-fi samples left us hanging (or should I stay, standing) in a vibrant atmosphere of surprising emotion.
Here's a sample of a cover version of "Everybody's Got to Learn Something" originally from The Korgis (UK/1980) but covered by many artists and musicians. It was the first song they played at their show (and the only song with vocals). One of the 4 guys (the other guy standing next to Alex) came to the mic and introduced the song by singing/saying the sentence "Change your heart, look around you" only once. THAT'S IT. NOW ENJOY.
