Playing The Field

The Field is Axel Willner: a Berlin based Swede whose pulsing minimal tracks ring with obscured, wordless samples, fluttering two-note melodies and incessant kick drums. His 2007 full length debut album, From Here We Go Sublime, coaxed techno from the dancefloor to both the bedroom and the headphones with melodically charged abandon. The success of this crossover and resulting enthusiastic critical response resulted in it being afforded album of the year by Metacritic's review aggregator, and doubts circled as to whether the Field would be able to top it.

But take a listen to his new record, Yesterday and Today, and there is something undeniably deeper to be discovered there. Johanna Newsom's Ys was a triumphant display of substance, richly crafted songs that defied both convention and expectation, building upon an already distinct sound with startlingly confident development, and one cannot help but hear echoes of that in Willner's sophomore effort. Songs stretch out over the minutes, the tiny intricacies remain, but a new undercurrent shimmers beneath, and despite a sense of familiarity, this new album seems to reach a much higher plain of brilliance.

Asking Axel about his developing sound, and the triumph of building upon the foundations of a successful debut, he is unsure of what it was that prompted him: "I had a huge lack of creativity when I started the new record because I had been touring too much and I just wasn't in the mood to be making any music".

That tour, despite draining his artistic desires, appears to have been a double blessing. Becoming increasingly sick of being that guy alone onstage with a laptop, who could well be checking his emails for all the audience know, he brought in two old friends to assemble a new live show, for both his and his listeners sake. "To have this live band is so much more organic, much more fun for me and the audience. It's a lot more physical than to see a guy standing there with a laptop. I get pretty bored of playing like that, and to go and watch it. It's not as intriguing as it used be."

Axel hints at a sea change that seems to be slowly swelling against solo laptop music. Where, five years ago, it was more acceptable for the limited interaction and lack of obvious performance to be forgiven in light of the novelty, the dwindling appeal is leaving many audiences thirsting for more. The success of these expanded live shows has prompted the emergence of a wider sound upon the record. The glimmering glockenspiels and swirling percussion that so compliment his tracks - "a sound that I really wanted to keep on the album" - emanated from playing live with old friends. Interestingly, it wasn't similarly minded musicians that Axel chose to work with on this record, but simply acquintances who he feels most at ease collaborating with. "It's more like a friendship" he says, "I never have to instruct my band now because we are so together musically."

Several encounters with Battles' drummer John Stanier at various European festivals helped propel this, with his motorik grooves driving forth the title track, a fifteen minute sprawl that provides a centre piece to the album. "We were in Cologne at the same time, and thought why not book a studio and have a jam. From that we recorded some musical sketches, and this track is based upon those."

While both Battles and the Field obsess over intricately looped ideas, Axel doesn't see much of a link between the two. "Maybe if it's tiny looped things, layer upon layer, we have a small similarity, but harmonically and melodically it's very different" he muses. "But what I love most about loops is that you just need a short loop, and you can repeat it and it just grows by itself, and you don't really have to add anything to it."

His obsession with simplicity and the beauty that comes with miniscule changes that flow and grow is integral to what makes the Field so listenable. He holds onto those loops for such length on this record, as they throb for ten, sometimes fifteen minutes at a time, making for a greater release as they unravel and splinter. "With a loop, you reach a climax when you either release a little bit more, add or remove one more thing, or just switch to another one." Axel suddenly sounds hesitant. "Changes are also good."

Working alone on the core of the record, before overdubbing live instruments in a Swedish studio, he manipulates, sculpts, and cloaks every sample. "Sourcing a sample often starts with a coincidence," he reveals. "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't." This attention to detail is, in part, down to a desire to disguise the samples from their creators in order to avoid licensing agreements and fees, but also indicates a real determination to make every sample his own.

Listening to his brilliant reimagining of Thom Yorke's Cymbal Rush from the Radiohead frontman's remix EP emphasises just how well he manages to claim and possess every sample he works with, as the almost unrecognisable fragments disintegrate through the mix. And for the first time, this has manifested itself in a more open tribute, as his remix/cover version of the Korgi's Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime embraces the main vocal sample, then dances it to some far out territories till the original melodies are almost forgotten.

Are you listening, Kanye West?

Of course, there's a downside to all these unvarying, unrelenting beats. As the man himself explains: "A lot of people get bored or stressed out by the repetitiveness or just think it's fucking boring, but not me. I think it's beautiful." Allow yourself to be immersed in this wonderfully lush, opulent record, and you will doubtless come to agree.