These New Puritans:
Field of Reeds:
Infectious Music:
Out Now:
9/10
Now here's an outfit that has transgressed from being agreeable yet standard indie-synth fare to totally out-there left-field art-house ambience. Whereas These New Puritans wielded short bursts on the 2008 debut-album Beat Pyramids and proffered sonically-advanced neo-classical yields with follow-up Hidden, Jack Barnett and co have re-invented themselves yet again on Field of Reeds.
It may be churlish and lazy to dismiss TNP as the new Talk Talk, but the comparison is unavoidable - this is their Spirit of Eden, particularly in structure, composition and length. Few tracks fall short of five minutes and most meander through a miasma of brass, strings or percussion (sometimes all three at once), frequently atonal, often beautiful, beatless and unsettling but rarely without a sense of direction.
Of course, all truly decent albums should have a legend or myth attached to them and Field Of Reeds is no exception. The opening song was originally called The Way I Do but, due to it featuring a field-recording of an unknown singer half-recalling a rather more well-known song called This Guy's In Love With You, its original writers Bacharach and David's trustees demanded credit and recompense, hence the adopted title on the sleeve. The music on this opening piece certainly sets the scene - eerie, atmospheric, other-worldly and moreish, morphing into rather more familiar territory with the slow-building single Fragment Two.
Jack Barnett's voice is by turns fragile, resonating, off-key, withdrawn, often absent and utilized more as an instrument rather than a focal point, while the band and its guests spread themselves across further field-recordings, percussion including gongs and vibraphones, brass, strings and a welter of studio paraphernalia that recalls elements of Dead Can Dance, David Sylvian, Wim Mertens, Stockhausen, Neu, Miles Davis and even Mike Oldfield. Oh and the Talk Talk connection continues with the installation of trumpeter Henry Lowther (he played on Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, don'tcha know).
Side two, on the lavish vinyl package, is arguably the album's centre-piece and features three absorbing epics ranging from the slow, brooding progressive V (Island Song), the near-gothic Spiral and the eddying cyclical fairground instrumental Organ Eternal that has an air of Tubular Bells about it. If you can warm to this trio, you'll devote the rest of your day to the other six pieces on this double album, although side four may do some serious damage to your stylus - it's an etching! And the art doesn't stop there - the embossed cover also houses two prints and sleevenotes (after a fashion). It is an impressive package.
Field of Reeds is an album that stays with you, capable of filling your ears with the music of kings and definitive enough to be considered timeless in years to come.
Field of Reeds:
Infectious Music:
Out Now:
9/10
It may be churlish and lazy to dismiss TNP as the new Talk Talk, but the comparison is unavoidable - this is their Spirit of Eden, particularly in structure, composition and length. Few tracks fall short of five minutes and most meander through a miasma of brass, strings or percussion (sometimes all three at once), frequently atonal, often beautiful, beatless and unsettling but rarely without a sense of direction.
Of course, all truly decent albums should have a legend or myth attached to them and Field Of Reeds is no exception. The opening song was originally called The Way I Do but, due to it featuring a field-recording of an unknown singer half-recalling a rather more well-known song called This Guy's In Love With You, its original writers Bacharach and David's trustees demanded credit and recompense, hence the adopted title on the sleeve. The music on this opening piece certainly sets the scene - eerie, atmospheric, other-worldly and moreish, morphing into rather more familiar territory with the slow-building single Fragment Two.
Jack Barnett's voice is by turns fragile, resonating, off-key, withdrawn, often absent and utilized more as an instrument rather than a focal point, while the band and its guests spread themselves across further field-recordings, percussion including gongs and vibraphones, brass, strings and a welter of studio paraphernalia that recalls elements of Dead Can Dance, David Sylvian, Wim Mertens, Stockhausen, Neu, Miles Davis and even Mike Oldfield. Oh and the Talk Talk connection continues with the installation of trumpeter Henry Lowther (he played on Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, don'tcha know).
Side two, on the lavish vinyl package, is arguably the album's centre-piece and features three absorbing epics ranging from the slow, brooding progressive V (Island Song), the near-gothic Spiral and the eddying cyclical fairground instrumental Organ Eternal that has an air of Tubular Bells about it. If you can warm to this trio, you'll devote the rest of your day to the other six pieces on this double album, although side four may do some serious damage to your stylus - it's an etching! And the art doesn't stop there - the embossed cover also houses two prints and sleevenotes (after a fashion). It is an impressive package.
Field of Reeds is an album that stays with you, capable of filling your ears with the music of kings and definitive enough to be considered timeless in years to come.