The SiBERiA team presents:
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Release Info:
Artist ...... The Field
Title ....... From Here We Go Sublime
Type ........ LP
Label ....... Kompakt
Cat.Number .. KOMCD57
Genre ....... Techno
Style ....... Minimal
Street date . 00-03-2007
Rip date .... 18-02-2009
Source ...... WEB
Url ......... http://www.bleep.com
Encoder ..... Lame 3.96r
Ripper ...... dedmoroz
Quality ..... 320kbps / 44.1 kHz / Joint Stereo
Tracks ...... 10
Size ........ 157.93Mb
List Of Tracks:
Track Title Time
01 ... Over The Ice 6:56
02 ... A Paw In My Face 5:24
03 ... Good Things End 6:08
04 ... The Little Heart Beats So Fast 5:25
05 ... Everyday 6:59
06 ... Silent 7:35
07 ... The Deal 10:03
08 ... Sun & Ice 6:34
09 ... Mobilia 6:28
10 ... From Here We Go Sublime 4:09
Total
65:41
Release Notes:
Every track on the debut album of Axel Willner, the Swedish ambient
techno producer behind the Field, feels both buoyant and wholly
submerged in something horizon-fat and translucent. Listening to it is
like holding your head under heated water with only one iPod earbud
attachedùvague, blurry, a snub of the eye that makes clarity seem so
goddam dull. Look at From Here You Go SublimeÆs ten-minute centerpiece,
ôThe Deal.ö Placed just after the record goes from its relatively
floor-fit starterÆs shotùif you can really call anything on From Here
æfloor-fitÆùWillner begins to play strange with the moist, hypervisual
atmospheres heÆs worked up in the albumÆs first-half. After a stiff
bass drum pulse and what sounds like an overworked refrigerator motor
whirring, Willner splices in his patented severed vocal loops, and
gives it a strangely beatific sense of gravitas. ItÆs a weightless
sound that neglects the retina to the reverb and odd shimmer of
senselessness, and itÆs just one of ten smothered gems in what is
surely a timeless entry in KompaktÆs catalogue.
Of course, not many will be surprised by the FieldÆs stunning debut
record. Hyperbole and instant idolatry have been with him since his
debut 2005 single on Kompakt, ôThings Keep FallinÆ Down,ö the b-side of
which saw Willner slicing the Four TopsÆ ôReach Out (IÆll Be There)ö
and other samples into a gorgeous reinterpretation of laser-guided
melodies. With his second single ôSun & Ice,ö three tracks from which
are included here, it became clear that ôThingsö was no fluke but
instead an introduction to a producer capable of the most perplexingly
simple fusionsùsomething again struck home by his scene-stealer on Pop
Ambient 2007, ôKappsta.ö But even with dance musicÆs oft-stated
reshaping for the home listener and expert full-lengths the last few
years from Matthew Dear, Alex Smoke, Lindstrom, Ellen Allien, My My,
Gui Boratto, Pantha du Prince, etc., techno often still has a difficult
time shaping its furious twelve-inch time cycles into the recline of
the full-length. This ainÆt an issue for the Field. From Here We Go
Sublime may not be an evolution for Willner, but itÆs a singular
distillation of his talents into one album. Mixing gauzy shoegaze,
slippery ambient loops, and two-cheeks-on-the-floor bass drum bounce,
the Field offers an idyllic work of startling novelty, and perhaps
ætechnoÆÆs most widely appreciable offering in years.
Evolving with a sense of cohesion and sly foresight that almost belies
the albumÆs inclusion of past singles, From Here We Go Sublime is a
success of temporal shifts and shy, first-morning sidesteps in mood
akin to the way a day fills itself without your noticingùlike how time
often gets misinterpreted as its absence, just yesterday I was. . .
Everything seems hyper-realistic, both its dances and its doldrums. He
gently pokes and subdues, allowing you to forget moments just-gone and
back now, but clearer the second time. And yet Willner manages to
create something so hypnotic out of a seemingly effortless and basic
set of ground-rulesùsomething thatÆs bound to play to critics of From
Here as Willner simply hitting on a good formula and overusing it.
But, more to the point, WillnerÆs precise reconstruction of old sounds
and songs into these new, shimmering forms feels somehow old-hat and
startlingly inventive. Both ôA Paw in My Faceö and ôGood Things Endö
wind their AM gold samplesùôPawöÆs coming from Lionel RichieÆs
ôHelloöùaround healthy beats in gentle progressions that mount into
full-out disco struts, in ways you canÆt help but feel Jason Forrest
should be studying at short-armÆs length. The samples become rhythmic
guitar parts to spell WillnerÆs exhaust of space, and the songsÆ bold,
simple beats have to play into their clear atmospheres or give into the
expanse. On ôThe Little Heart Beats So Fastö though, perhaps the
albumÆs most stunning inclusion barring its last, the Field stunts and
grunts with his samples in a Perlon sense, adding them into the block
of rhythms, hallucinatory, grandiose, and darkly ambiguous. Likewise,
ôEverydayö makes astral ambient techno out of its referentialism,
dissolving just after the 2:30 mark to show you just what you were
listening to, RPMs gear-stripped so everythingÆs clear. But thatÆs when
it really settles into itself, with WillnerÆs vocal-circles upping the
ante on atmospheric glee for the next twelve months.
But looking back at ôKappstaö specifically, itÆs clear the Field likes
to play the mope sometimes. Opener ôOver the Iceöùfrom last yearÆs ôSun
& Iceö singleùchops shards of Kate BushÆs ôUnder the Iceö into a gale
of shoegaze, while ôSun & Iceö puts the same MBV-like touchstones
toward creating an elegant, almost sylvan suite of quietude. Near the
albumÆs end, after the slight tidal shift of ôThe Deal,ö ôMobiliaö
stitches its loops into trim pokes of synthetic strings, powderburst
against its peppery drum-patterningùa rarity for Willnerùand stretched
taut until you hear the clean guitar sheen Willner may have been using
all along.
Even given a nine-track familiarity with the FieldÆs techniques, closer
ôFrom Here We Go Sublimeö will have you stinking. Starting with a stark
tonal reverb like a church organ spilled through dented pipes,
WillnerÆs at his loosest with his samples; his shadow teasing is more
overt now, prodding your sense of both collective and personal history,
tugging apart one of the more recognizable choruses in music to show
you just how much atmospheric bliss he can make of something so naked
of novelty. And just after wrinkling them into grandfather clock
noises, tock-tock-whoosh, his loops slowly lengthen and uncurl, and at
2:14, Willner opens his hand to the Flamingos and their
ôsha-bob-sha-bob.ö And, if youÆre impressedùand you should beùyou
wonder why you didnÆt hear it before. But, with a debut album like From
Here We Go Sublime, itÆs becoming clear that perhaps the only one
intimately concerned with the spatial gospel of these records and
sounds weÆve remembered to forget is the Field. And, hell, if he can
give us another album so comforting in its creativity every few years,
heÆs entitled to our amnesia.