The third
Field album is front-loaded with two of Axel Willner's most entrancing and brawniest productions yet. Opener “Is This Power” coasts on a deep dubwise bassline, softly smacking percussion, and a fogged-out keyboard melody, its blissful stasis interrupted by a trap-door breakdown that makes way for patterns of black diamond gleam. The speedy “It’s Up There” is carried by sluicing ambient wash, firm-cushion thumps, and a twangy/plucked bass. It’s Willner’s most transportive work since “Love vs. Distance,” the A-side of his debut 12” single. Those first two tracks, totaling 17 minutes, are compounds of shoegaze, ambient dub, and techno -- antidotes for those who looked forward to the January 2011 return from
Field progenitors
Seefeel and were left cold by its bristly arrhythmia. This album’s remainder does not feature as much action, but much of it -- including the gushing “Arpeggiated Love” and the fragile piano ballad “Then It’s White,” the latter of which comes across as a return love letter to Dirk Leyers' Kompakt B-side “Come to Where I Go” -- is as alluring and dreamlike as anything from Willner’s first two full-lengths. As on 2009’s
Yesterday and Today, Willner is assisted by a handful of multi-instrumentalists who add both heft and nuance. Indeed, this set’s title is somewhat misleading; the contents are seemingly open-ended and breathe. They sound little like the product of solitary programming. ~ Andy Kellman