The Field - "Sound of Light" EP

The Field - Night (iTunes 2008)

The Field - "Sound of Light" EP / iTunes

Axel Willner has gone and sprung some conceptual hijinx on the music community not even one month into the new year. After winning over the press with From Here We Go Sublime in '07, The Field has returned with his trademark sound on a commission from the Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm. The fundamental question that lies within the commission - What does light sound like? - is ripe for conceptual examination in itself. If Sound of Light represents four times of the day, do they effectively evoke the time of day they were written for?

Armed with this question, I spent several days with Sound of Light listening to it at all times of the day in a kind of dream journal free-for-all method. In the morning getting ready for work before dawn, mid-afternoon on a lazy weekend (The only time of week I can be lazy, really), at night brushing teeth before I get ready for bed. I left the notepad out and the window open to record the thoughts in my state at the time. This is what I had to say, though I don't remember writing it all...

I. Morning

Friday, February 1st: I really don't want to go back to sleep. Seriously. Fucking techno. But wait, I think I follow: "Morning" bursts to life just as the sun rises, and for a few minutes it's really exciting to see the white-hot ball of fire over the horizon. Then it drains you. That sounds like the light I know. Still not seeing the sense in "Day." Light doesn't sound that mechanical; why should music sound the way we feel?

II. Day

Saturday, January 26th: I have just listened to Field of Light for the first time. One of the main reasons I didn't like From Here We Go Sublime was because the beat was off, the tempo was wrong, it was too formless, it didn't feel like it had structure. This is different. It doesn't seem that way initially on "Night" or "Morning" - in fact, the latter sounds exactly like Willner did last year. Virtually a replica of the opening seconds from "Over the Ice" for a less attentive listener, but the beat changes subtly and at the 3m15s mark it opens up into a harmonized vocal loop that bursts to life just a quarter of a minute later. Definite attention-getter, but it was difficult to sustain for the 15+ minutes that it ran.

I get the industrial undertow of "Day," the workmanlike machinations obvious to anyone with a 9-to-5er. But is this what light sounded like to Willner during his stay? After four minutes it jolts you as "Morning" did, but it sounds more apprehensive and nervous. It's the busiest track here, and maybe the harshest. In that respect, I suppose I understand. I am slowly coming to understand why this is as good as it is.

III. Evening

Monday, February 4th: The slim window I have to relax at home on Mondays, and here I am wasting my time with this album to see what more I can understand of it. My commute home is a long, northernly denouement that ends one stop short of Loyola U. From the bustle of the rush to be first on the train to the ultimate formlessness and sparse scattering of passengers as I debark to walk home. In this sense, "Evening" doesn't fit quite right given that is more alive at the end of the song than the beginning... But I guess when you take into account the fact that my evening is about to be filled with drinking and fairly loud dance music, it makes more sense. "Night" is the ultimate nocturnal denouement. Barely there, but definitely alive. I must use this.

IV. Night

Thursday, February 7th: Maybe this is The Field's greatest achievement: With just four songs, Willner has created cuts that adjust for the time of day, but more importantly, the type of light. Few other artists could have executed it so well, because few have the ability to run the assembly line futility making up the majority of "Day" with the radiant outbursts that come with a smoke break or lunch when you can get the hour off. Equally crucial is how "Night" plays like the broken dreams of REM sleep, glitches here and there where you swear you can hear words and phrases and then, like that, phased out again. In and out, flickering eyelids, deep unrest.

I don't remember where I heard that Kompakt weren't happy about how this album was released, but Willner has demonstrated to the loyal that his debut was no fluke and opened eyes to a few new followers with a commission that sounds neither hasty nor half-assed. The return for the German label ought to be much better when he gets around to that second album. Sitting in darkness trying to finish this, I cannot think that far ahead. All I see is the light of the laptop screen in front of me. And what a beautiful sound it is.