INAUDIBLE

When Axel Willner aka The Field appeared out of the ether in 2007 with the excellent “From Here We Go Sublime”, the album spun relentlessly in my apartment for months. There was something really hypnotic about his looped tech-ambience that sounded fresh and new at a time when techno was starting to sound a bit samey and lackluster. Two years blinked by and he returned with “Yesterday and Today” in the spring of this year. I immediately grabbed it, but for some reason was hesitant to listen to it. For some reason felt it wouldn’t be able to hold up to “Sublime”. But in the last few weeks I’ve finally gotten into it, and now think it an amazing follow up. In fact, I think it’s better. A more fully realized vision of his musical aesthetic.

The second track “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime” slows the tempo down and adds lush vocals in the mix to fantastic effect, and then “Leave It” comes next — a sprawling and emotive track of 4/4 techno bliss — and when the bass hook drops at the 3 minute mark, I am fucking sold. Wooh. One of my fave songs of the summer for sure. I’ve listened to it so many times in the last few weeks it’s embarrassing. I’m sure my neighbours wanna kill me, but I can’t get enough. The title track is also fantastic and features John Stanier from Battles adding some live drums to the mix, which I think really works. Altogether, this is an excellent album and right now is looking like a top ten of the year.

Love it.

Tags: axel willner, battles, electronica, from here we go sublime, kompakt records, mmmlele, techno, the field, the field yesterday and today, yesterday and today

This entry was posted on September 1, 2009 at 19:09 and is filed under electronica, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.