Plumb - Field Music

Plumb

Field Music

Memphis Industries.

SCQ Rating: 79%

Oh, Field Music. Every other year the Brewis brothers unveil a new record of McCartney-sized hooks, precise instrumental shifts and tuneful segues, which is hailed as a modern masterpiece and then shrugged off by the end-of-year lists’ deadline. Hardly a jilt on the part of the UK press, I too have personally treated Field Music with unstable parts admiration and neglect. The dynamic song-craft nearly bursting the seams of Tones of Town and Measure caught my ear immediately but wore off just as instantly. (For what it’s worth: the only Field Music release I’ve held onto over the years doesn’t even get a mention on the duo’s official website – and in Write Your Own History’s case, my loyalties remain rooted in nostalgia.)

Is it possible that Field Music’s original approach to pop music, whereby they collect a myriad of colourful ideas then imbed and stitch them to a cohesive composition, fares more memorably on a technical level than in our music-loving consciousness? Field Music’s reputation as novel songwriters is undeniable even in the Americas, yet they’ve failed to gather many perks that other English bands from the mid-00’s post-punk arena who’ve already peaked and crumbled. The band’s inability to keep pop simple may be key to the giant divide between critical success and commercial wherewithal.

Well even if Field Music’s orchestral and proggy dissection of pop music provides merely a temporary delight, I can’t deny that Plumb has transfixed me yet again. Tightening their focus after 2010’s bold, twenty track affair Measure, David and Peter Brewis lust after a slightly more aggressive vein of complicated pop this go around, as heard on the Zeppelin-esque guitar licks that climb over “Start the Day Right”’s woozy strings. With chamber-pop tendencies being relegated to Field Music’s always-cluttered margins, gorgeously unpolished guitar tones become central on tracks like “(I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing” and “Is This the Picture?”. Each song still carries the duo’s knack for whimsy (“Ce Soir”, “A Prelude to Pilgrim Street”) while branching into the unexpected (the funk-tinged “A New Town”), and yet none of it feels overwrought or showy. Field Music will always be eccentric but Plumb stands to make their niche more universal as the most focused showcase in a career reconstructing pop.

(Measure) - Field Music (LIVE March 19th at Horseshoe Tavern!!)

(Measure)

Field Music
Memphis Industries.

SCQ Rating: 75%

A chance-happening at a listening station first introduced me to Field Music, when the multicoloured verbosity of their Write Your Own History caught my eye. Standing there listening to the first minute or two of each track suggested an outstanding record, one worthy of forking over the insane import-price of $30, and although the entire nine-track disc ended up running shy of twenty-seven minutes, I’ve never regretted the purchase. Still, the slight disappointment I retain from that anecdote brings to mind a key reason I hold the Brewis Bros’ work at a distance: their songs are criminally short. And when Tones of Town added complex structures to their abbreviated tunes, Field Music seemed to be darting toward a thousand lovely possibilities but burning out before owning any of their ideas.

All that said, the surprise to (Measure) isn’t that it exists – c’mon now, every good hiatus lasts about two years – but that Peter and David Brewis have returned with a record that, stitch for stitch, remedies each of my shrugging critiques. I crossed my fingers throughout the lush menace of ‘In the Mirror’, which moves as svelte as headlights across a darkened bedroom, hoping they wouldn’t shift into a symphonic, McCartney-esque stomp or a tepid a cappella moment. They didn’t. Not only does (Measure) focus on and flesh-out a generous handful of Field Music’s countless great song ideas, it easily earns its reputation as Field Music’s least cute album. Sure, a slice of its maturity may seem superficial (for those of you who don’t find the idea of a two-disc, seventy-minute Field Music album completely absurd), but (Measure) would be just as brash and tough if you cut half of these twenty tracks. While the clean acoustics of ‘Them That Do Nothing’ climb over a steady rhythm, ‘All You’d Ever Need To Say’ touches up on yesteryear’s blues-rock. Unlikely as it may seem, Field Music somehow evokes a polished Broadway-bound Led Zeppelin on many of these tracks, from ‘Precious Plans’’s six-string rumination to the garage-y breakdown of ‘Share the Words’. Stranger yet, it’s a brawny direction that seeks to showcase - not undermine - the songwriters’ well-honed cleverness and orchestral charms.

Of course if Field Music remain ambassadors of anything, it’s as English-pop purveyors who never close any door and (Measure) – no matter how focused, how well-bricked – certainly tests the genre-pool over its twenty tracks. The nine-minute ‘It’s About Time’ may befuddle its purpose between minimal string quartet and field recording and ‘Let’s Write a Book’ doesn’t mind uncrating weird 80s presets that call to mind the Ghostbuster soundtrack, but these asides don’t distract from what (Measure) ultimately achieves: a commanding epic from a band accustomed to punching out half-hour art-pop records. So if you’re in the Toronto area this Friday, be sure to grab tickets to see Field Music play the legendary Horseshoe Tavern. Need another reason? Um, the Clientele… It’s going to be one of the best Horseshoe shows all year.

Write Your Own History - Field Music (SCQ Spring 2008)

Write Your Own History

Field Music
Memphis Industries.

SCQ Rating: 76%

B-side compilations rarely present the best material for first-listen experiences. Not only because you’re usually hearing songs that were released at the insistence of opportunistic labels who see a band on the rise (instead of the band itself, who are usually apprehensive about showing off work they purposefully withheld), but also because b-sides are usually failed experiments. When I first heard Write Your Own History – at a record store listening station, ten minutes after getting off a greyhound bus to visit friends – I had no idea that I was hearing b-sides, nor who Field Music were. A minute-long peek at each of these nine songs hinted at a record of great promise and I hastily bought it, unaware that its insane import price would actually be as high a number as the minutes this album consists of (28 min., so you know). That I’m still happy to own this record should inform how good it is.

Although ‘Trying to Sit Out’ and ‘Breakfast Song’ may be brief, they were written and arranged with the weight of any three-minute pop song. Of Field Music’s several talents, their ability to throw a wide variety of ideas into a whirlwind two-minute song is certainly their unique gift. Take single ‘You’re Not Supposed To’, a blender-mix of vocal harmonies and piano/guitar pop that never feels too busy. Even the quiet strums of ‘I’m Tired’ are bolstered by a backing string section and subtle laptop beats, guaranteeing that Write Your Own History never gives in to its undernourished running-time.

The quality of this recording only admits its compilation status in the sequencing, which is ordered reverse-chronologically (2005 back to 2000) to offer a history (like its essay-plagued artwork) of the band’s sonic evolution. The stitches necessary to seam these songs casually together are audible – few tracks here naturally flow into one another – but what’s impressive is how neither side of this history outshines the other; their work from the turn of the century is as assured and inviting as the single from their self-titled album in 2005. Write Your Own History isn’t mind-blowing work, but as a collection of their failed experiments, it’s a telling indication of how brilliant their A-game material must be. Just try to find it at a better price...