Peter Brewis: “We wanted to spread the palette around”

what was the thinking behind the album?

We wanted to get more people involved. Also, a lot had happened, personally and in the wider world that we wanted to address. Musically we wanted to make it a bit more sonically wide ranging. We got the horns and the strings involved a bit more, we got a flautist in. We wanted to spread the palette around a bit. How could we change the ensemble up a bit for every song, so that everyone is not on everything?

anything in particular inspired you this time?

They’ve been re-running Top Of The Pops from the ’80s on BBC4, and I find it fascinating what pop music was in 1982. You’d get the Ian Gillan Band on next to Ultravox. People talk about ‘The Sound Of The ’80s’, but it was just crazy! We weren’t trying to reflect that, but we thought, ‘How can we make a record which reflects things that could be Madonna or could be The Left Banke?’ That could be Serge Gainsbourg, or Wizzard? I was interested in presenting Field Music as more multi-faceted. Rather than trying to put everything into one song, which we’ve tried to do before, how can we focus more on a particular sound or idea?