Field Music - Measure

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5...according to our Business Lady on Fri 12 Feb, 2010.

What can I say about 'Measure'? It's all over the shop, a sprawling mass of fractured grooves and foolhardy reinterpretations of music that, under general circumstances, should be left well alone. It's not unfair to call Field Music the 10CC of our time but that would be forgetting the influence of The Beatles, Roxy Music, Queen, Sparks, Led Zep, Supertramp, Prince, Bowie and many, many more. 'Measure' is a celebration of the recording studio and the creative possibilities it presents to folk with an abundance of ideas and musical skill. Much like Jim O' Rourke's 'Insignificance' on 'Measure' the group are confident and playful in their approach, casually reshaping classics in their own image. Nothing here you could call entirely new but what they do with the source material is a thing of wonder.

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Following a self-imposed three year hiatus Sunderland's Field Music are set to return with a new 20 track album of artful English pop, to be released by Memphis Industries on 15th February 2010. Powered, as ever, by brothers and co-front men Peter and David Brewis, Field Music's line up now includes Kev Dosdale (guitar and keys) and Ian Black (bass).

The new album (self titled but identified as “Field Music (Measure)” to distinguish it from their debut album) is a gloriously rich LP that entwines the brother's renewed love of the rock music cannon with a rediscovery of some of pop's overlooked adventurers. If you listen closely, you might hear echos of and allusions to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Bela Bartok, Prince, Fleetwood Mac, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Bowie, Richard Thompson, PJ Harvey, Crazy Horse, Erik Satie, Kate Bush, Talk Talk, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, The Blue Nile, Pierre Schaeffer, Roxy Music, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Todd Rundgren and Discipline-era King Crimson.

Unlike previous Field Music albums, characterised by their precision and conceptual and sonic coherence, this new record makes no attempt to present itself as a unified whole. Themes disappear and reappear. Some songs flow together, others intrude on each other. There are contradictions and ripostes. There appears to be a great deal of defiance and a fair amount of resignation.

Can it make sense? Does it matter if there is no sense? What strands can possibly hold together the dissonant funk of 'Let's Write A Book' (a call to arms for the perpetually apologetic), the mutated blues of 'Each Time Is A New Time' (a riposte to misplaced faith in repetition), the chopping and splashing pop driven through 'Them That Do Nothing' (perhaps about a valiant willingness to make mistakes), the multilayered riffery of 'The Rest Is Noise' or the epic found-sound song cycle that starts with 'See You Later'?
Tracklisting:

Field Music - Field Music (Measure) (MI0149CD)

CD Double Album

CD 1
1.        Field Music - In The Mirror
2.        Field Music - Them That Do Nothing
3.        Field Music - Each Time is a New Time
4.        Field Music - Measure
5.        Field Music - Effortlessly
6.        Field Music - Clear Water
7.        Field Music - Lights Up
8.        Field Music - All You'd Ever Need to Say
9.        Field Music - Let's Write a Book
10.        Field Music - You and I

CD 2
1.        Field Music - The Rest is Noise
2.        Field Music - Curves of the Needle
3.        Field Music - Choosing Numbers
4.        Field Music - The Wheels are in Place
5.        Field Music - First Come the Wish
6.        Field Music - Precious Plans
7.        Field Music - See You Later
8.        Field Music - Something Familiar
9.        Field Music - Share the Words
10.        Field Music - It's About Time