Looping State of Mind The Field Artist

The third {|Field|} album is front-loaded with two of {|Axel Willner|}'s most entrancing and brawniest productions yet. Opener Is This Power coasts on a deep dubwise bassline, softly smacking percussion, and a fogged-out keyboard melody, its blissful... Read more

The third {|Field|} album is front-loaded with two of {|Axel Willner|}'s most entrancing and brawniest productions yet. Opener Is This Power coasts on a deep dubwise bassline, softly smacking percussion, and a fogged-out keyboard melody, its blissful stasis interrupted by a trap-door breakdown that makes way for patterns of black diamond gleam. The speedy It's Up There is carried by sluicing ambient wash, firm-cushion thumps, and a twangy/plucked bass. It's {|Willner|}'s most transportive work since Love vs. Distance, the A-side of his debut 12 single. Those first two tracks, totaling 17 minutes, are compounds of shoegaze, ambient dub, and techno -- antidotes for those who looked forward to the January 2011 return from {|Field|} progenitors {|Seefeel|} and were left cold by its bristly arrhythmia. This album's remainder does not feature as much action, but much of it -- including the gushing Arpeggiated Love and the fragile piano ballad Then It's White, the latter of which comes across as a return love letter to {|Dirk Leyers|}' {|Kompakt|} B-side Come to Where I Go -- is as alluring and dreamlike as anything from {|Willner|}'s first two full-lengths. As on 2009's {|Yesterday and Today|}, {|Willner|} is assisted by a handful of multi-instrumentalists who add both heft and nuance. Indeed, this set's title is somewhat misleading; the contents are seemingly open-ended and breathe. They sound little like the product of solitary programming. ~ Andy Kellman Less