FIELD MUSIC Open Here
8/10
Brewis brothers add note of dissent to their refined pop-prog. By Graeme Thomson
“Time in Joy”, the opening track on Field music’s seventh album, encapsulates perfectly what this band do so well. Were you tasked to sum up its six minutes in a pithy elevator pitch, you might say it sounds like late-’70s Genesis meeting Prince’s Around The World In A Day. Quirky synth sounds are set against the deep burble of bass and the hard, compressed slap of drums. The melody shades towards classic pop before veering into appealing, somewhat wistful tangents. There is something quintessentially english and innately melancholic about the voices, yet the promise of rapture is rarely far away. it’s technically adroit yet not remotely sterile, precise yet fluid, eccentric but accessible, street-smart yet drawn to the pastoral.
Two unprepossessing brothers from Sunderland, David and Peter Brewis would appear unlikely saviours of the fine art of progressive pop. yet – once again – the evidence is persuasive. Precisely two years on from their last album, Commontime, Open Here further advances the Brewises as caretakers of a lineage that includes Todd Rundgren, Steely Dan, Talking Heads, Prince, Peter Gabriel, Prefab Sprout and Kate Bush among its stalwarts.
in some sense, Open Here is business as usual, recorded in the brothers’ own studio on the banks of the Wear with a familiar cast of musicians. yet it also feels like a band defining its priorities. For starters, there’s a new cohesion. Where
Commontime was an hour-long sprawl, Open Here turns in 11 songs in a trim 40 minutes, four clocking in at less than 180 seconds. Strings, horns and flutes colour the musical landscape, making it their most expansive record to date.
most striking of all is the sound of dissent. Since the last album, Sunderland has gained an unenviable reputation as the heart of Brexit Britain. By the end of
Open Here, it’s clear that the Brewises aren’t best pleased about this state of affairs, and plenty more besides.
The change of tone is most obvious on “Count it Up”, a brilliantly, insidiously infectious pop song, built on a sleek synth motif, harking back to the days when the likes of Scritti Politti smuggled political discourse into the charts beneath sweetly accessible exteriors. it’s a wake-up call to anyone not aware of their dose of good fortune in being born white, male, middle-class or British. “If you’ve ever visited another country and waltzed through passport control – then count that up/If you get to choose the clothes you wear and how you cut your hair – count that up.” And so on, a tide of everyday
blessings. in 1983, it might conceivably have shifted 250,000 copies. in 2018, it sounds vaguely revolutionary.
The squelchy funk-pop of “Goodbye To The Country” is similarly riled. it’s an immigrant’s song, withering in its contempt. “Don’t you know there’s a real war on?/Didn’t the papers tell you about it?” neat, tight and topped with a fantastic guitar solo, it wears its anger lightly.
A brief chamber piece, with top notes of ’80s macca, “open Here” is a dry-eyed lament for some hubristic high-flier who has fallen back to earth with a bump. “no King no Princess”, meanwhile, turns to identity politics, presumably inspired by both Brewises recently becoming fathers. “You can dress up how you want, and you can play with what you want, and you can
do the job you want…” trills guest vocalist Liz Corney over a truly delirious backing track, dominated by a bassline drawn from South African township jive and Simon Dennis’ sweet trumpet fills.
it’s not all Serious improving Thoughts. “Share A Pillow” is chunky, predatory funk, a tale of lascivious late-night creeping with a distinct Steely Dan vibe, the horns driving and swooping over scratchy guitars. The easeful “Daylight Saving” – “not down, not out” – has shades of Sparks in the chorus. “Front of House” recalls the dreamy, dislocated beauty of something like “All We ever Look For” from Kate Bush’s Never For Ever, while “Find A Way To Keep me” opens like a late-’70s Peter Gabriel piano ballad, before blossoming into a grandiose, flutedriven rock instrumental. imagine Jethro Tull playing the old Grandstand theme and you’re halfway there.
There are occasions when it all threatens to get a bit busy, as when “Checking on A message” clings on for dear life over a wilfully difficult rhythm, like a deconstructed roadhouse blues. But even these moments have their charm. “Never
been so happy,” they sing, “never been so bored.” neither happy nor bored, Open Here is another prog-pop masterclass from a band reflecting our times while remaining stubbornly out of step with them.