The Field: Cornering the Every Market

ORIGINALITY CORNER
You are 29, live in Stockholm, Sweden, spend time giving mini-interviews to eager indie-bloggers, tour with The Juan Maclean, enjoy lighthouses, have made punk music in your teens. But now, in your later twenties, you produce Scandinavian electronica. You are Axel Willner, and your current act is called The Field.

This week, The Field put out its second major LP, Yesterday and Today. Battles’ John Stanier plays real drums on the album, but beyond that it is mostly computer composed. The six songs on the disc are nearly unchanging in tempo and beat, but a satisfying glacial rhythm results. A majority of the samples used are looped quickly, without attack or release, and this contributes to the it’s-so-generic-it’s-unique sonic quality of the piece.

Yesterday and Today could sell anything – toothbrushes, liquor, linens, Keds, or meatballs. Its genius lies in its adaptability. And it would probably be fun to dance to live in a medium-sized venue, but probably not Webster Hall (mark June 20th on your iCal). Maybe a major US auto manufacturer will stumble across Yesterday and Today and use it to rescue the auto industry. Pure Swedish market-tronica.

by Thomas Wilk