BEHIND THE MUSIC: Field Music

Image by Andy Martin

Collaborations, solo projections and life’s ups and downs may come and go, but David and Peter Brewis will always return to Field Music (at least, we hope they will!) Limits of Language, released on 11^th October, sees the Brewis brothers in an often playfully experimental, nostalgic and, occasionally, reflective mood.

Here, David and Peter give us a deeper insight into some of the tracks on the album. They play an instore gig at Reflex, Newcastle on Thursday 17^th October.

Words: David & Peter Brewis

Six Weeks, Nine Wells

Last year the original Field Music trio did a couple of gigs playing only songs from the first two Field Music albums. One song we didn’t play, but which was requested, was 17, which involved two different chord progressions playing simultaneously in the left and right speakers – not an obvious live number. I kind of expanded on that idea with this song, but was leaning into some of the knottier harmonies I’ve been tinkering with for the past couple of years, and with the chords ticking from side to side. I’d started to noodle with it but was a bit stuck – it all sounded too proggy. Then Peter poked his head round the door and hummed a rhythm part. Suddenly it all clicked and I spun it out into a little Remembrance of Things Past – half-remembered moments from six weeks holidays long-gone – woozy and contradictory just like the music. David

I Might Have Been Wrong

I’ve had the intro for this song hanging around for over ten years, originally played – drum machine and all – on a weird little electric organ we have. I must have tried to develop it into a song a dozen times but finally last year I found the way to do it, mostly because I was in a frame of mind which matched the music. This is probably the song on the album which is most indebted to Avalon by Roxy Music. I know it has a reputation for being very smooth and glossy, but I find it to be really beautiful and really odd, with lots of quite-abrasive musical choices. I also hear in it a kind of yearning, for something that’s close enough to imagine but still indistinct. That however might be projection on my part because that’s also how I was feeling while we were making our record. David

The Waitress of St. Louis’

Louis cafe was a Sunderland institution. Until it sadly closed a few years ago, it had been a bit of an ever-present in our lives; from going for milkshakes as young children with our parents on a Saturday to providing a backdrop to our band photos a few years ago. Seeing as I used write a lot of words in there while sipping their strong black coffee, I thought it was about time that I wrote a song which referenced Louis directly. The song looks at how Louis was a place of congregation, solace and inspiration, almost church-like (hence the occasional religious allusion). The music is pretty much an attempt at making real a comment made by Beck saying something like ‘The Flaming Lips were like Led Zeppelin produced by Timbaland’. I think we went a bit more Neptunes. Peter

The Guardian of Sleep

This is me misquoting and not quite understanding a line from Guy Debord’s Society of The Spectacle and mapping it on to the RKO film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Now, if that sounds a little pretentious it’s probably because it is – and I don’t mind that. But, in my defence I was generally having a daft old laugh with it (as is usually the case). I thought there was something interesting and funny about chucking together Quasimodo’s Sanctuary and Debord’s Spectacle. I’d had the riff for ages and didn’t know what to do with it until Thomas Dolby’s Hyperactive came on the radio. I sort of mashed that up with Graceland. It didn’t come out sounding like either. There’s the advantage of a slap-dash approach! Peter

Turn The Hours Away

This was initially a bunch of slightly funky guitar chords but after hearing Ai Ga Nakucha Ne by Akiko Yano I transferred the idea to synth marimba and slowed it down to Bennie and The Jets tempo and we ended up with this slow spacious thing. The lyrics are mainly a glance back at going to Metroland at the end pf term. Metroland was an odd place – a tightly-packed indoor fairground, but it seemed very exotic when I was young. The lyrics reference Bananarama (who seemed to be playing on a constant loop) and the carousel, which was my favourite ride. I always wondered if people would lose their shoes on the carousel, falling into one of the decorative water features – and we’re talking Kickers, Wallabies, Nike Air Pegasus etc. These things were the main status symbols at the time. Peter