From here we go downhill

The Field’s ‘From here We Go Sublime’ has been my 2007 summer album without a doubt. Even though minimal is not a genre I am particularly fond of the Swedish Axel Willner made a record that keeps intriguing me from start to finish.

Every time I tried to describe the music to someone I made it sound like boring trance. Yes, it could be described as repetitive. Little cuts and snippets of sounds and vocals are rearranged in what seems to the order they should’ve been in to begin with. Yes, it is a bit like trance in the sense that it’s utterly mesmerizing. And no, there are no climaxes. But maybe I should’ve compared it to the best foreplay you’ve ever had. Foreplay that’s so good and completely satisfying you just want to go to sleep/smoke a cigarette after it’s done.

Maybe you understand why I really wanted to see The Field. Last Friday he played in Club 11 in Amsterdam. A ‘hipster’ club on the eleventh floor of a building that also houses the Central Museum. After a lovely dinner (calf tongue and sweetbread with peach) with the International Style and Beauty Guru and Kevin we waited for The Field to start playing. After a very long wait, boring DJ’s and some of the most ugly people I’ve seen in a long time we still had high hopes. But after he started playing those hopes we’re also quite dashed. Kevin (check out his totally comprehensive Soulwax site where you can hear the remix they did for Hot Chip) is a professional and competent DJ and watched Axel turn a knob a total of four times. The Field was billed as live and I guess he was since he did move four times but I was kind of disappointed. It took me a couple of songs to get into it and his 'Heartbeat' remix he did for Annie helped a lot but I was no where near impressed with it. I do however have the 'You Don’t Know Her Name' single from Maps and his remix of it. And the Remix he did for Gui Boratto who will be playing in Utrecht in Oktober.

Well, at least the sweetbread and calf tongue were sublime.

Here's the Maps Remix: Maps - You Don't Know Her Name (The Field Remix) (mp3)

And here's his hit: The Field - Everday (myspace)