Aiming for that “confidence in being loose”: Field Music in 2020
UNCUT CLASSIC COMMONTIME
ANDY MARTIN
MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES, 2016
Imbued with the joys (and worries) of new parenthood, Commontime’s snappy funkpop gets a royal seal of approval PETER: We were getting into the idea of enjoying pop music again. I was introducing my son to The Beatles and David Bowie and I wanted to make some music that he could sing along with. DAVID: Plumb ended up being kind of proggy, so maybe it was a reaction against that; the idea of getting back to radio music, compilation music, like we would have listened to when we were kids. PETER: So that was us trying to have fun while struggling [with parenthood]. I think that’s a common theme – everything else might not be going so well, but when we get together and make music, even if we have to deal with difficult subjects, let’s have a good time. I’d rather have a good time in the studio and get juiced up on coffee than have a bad time in the studio and have to go and sort it out down the pub later on. It’s more expensive, in lots of ways. DAVID: It was very strange to think of Prince hearing our music. I was on my way to Tesco when I saw his tweet [linking to “The Noisy Days Are Over”]. It was very gnomic, and because there’s a deliberate homage to the horn arrangements of Parade at the end of that song, I didn’t know 84 • UNCUT • JUNE 2021
whether it was an approving tweet or an ‘I’m about to start taking legal action’ tweet. We wrote a little article [for The Guardian] about how much we love Prince and the musical ideas we’d borrowed from him. And then he retweeted that article as well, and at that point I breathed a sigh of relief. PETER: It was around the same time as that ‘musical vibe’ case between the estate of Marvin Gaye and Robin Thicke. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’ve stolen Prince’s vibe!’ I mean, I tried to steal it – didn’t quite get there. But I don’t think he’d have made much money if he’d sued us.
OPEN HERE MEMPHISINDUSTRIES,2018
TheBrexitvotecastsaforlorn shadowoverFieldMusic’smost lavishlyorchestratedalbum,perked upbyachild’stoykeyboard DAVID: The schisms that the Brexit vote showed up in a place like Sunderland were pretty unavoidable. PETER: The first town out of Europe! I really struggled with the idea of us no longer being part of something bigger. How do you write about things like that? Don’t use minor chords, so it doesn’t become too dreary. And always approach it like a question: what’s going on? We’d just done a film project, Asunder, and that gave us a bit of confidence to see how far we could take the scoring element. DAVID: I got my son a toy keyboard for Christmas. The problem is now that the two kids argue over who gets to control the drum machine. PETER: Ah, one’s bossa nova and the other one’s a bit more 16-beat? DAVID: But when they’re not looking,
“We always try and write what is foremost in our minds” DAVID BREWIS
I go and play on the keyboard and maybe I’ll record it on my phone. And it so happened that when I was recording this keyboard riff, I could hear my son in the background counting, so that became the start of “Count It Up”. I’m always wary of doing a finger-pointing song unless I’m also pointing the finger at myself. I’m saying, “I have this privilege and I need to not forget that when I start throwing out judgements.” We never had to worry about anything fundamental growing up, and that’s not the case for everybody.
MAKING A NEW WORLD MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES, 2020
A commission from the Imperial War Museum leads to some oddly catchy songsabouttownplanningand genderreassignmentsurgery DAVID: The museum were looking for someone to do a performance. I think they had The Fall lined up, but Mark E Smith passed away and somehow we got the call. PETER: They needed someone reliable to do something quickly… DAVID: I’m fine with that as a reputation! It could have just been an ordinary gig and that would probably have been enough to fulfil the brief, except we took it too far. With their encouragement. PETER: The Making A New World
season wasn’t about the first world war, it was about the after-effects. So let’s think about sonar, votes for women, the flu pandemic, and find a personal story in each of them. DAVID: The songs were all about an individual’s feelings on the subject matter. But it’s almost like some people were put off by the very idea. PETER: People are sold on this thing of ‘music’s for feeling, man, and not for thinking’ – but it’s for both, you know? There’s a massive tradition of being informed by music. Making A New World was probably too much for some people to handle. It was too much for us to handle, really. Especially at the time, when we were going through lots of personal turmoil. But it was good to be able to write about somebody else.
FLAT WHITE MOON MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES, 2021
A return to first principles finds the brothersprocessinglossthroughthe prismofsun-dappledmemory PETER: Our mother passed away three years ago. And I experienced a change in domestic circumstances, politically put. It all felt pretty heavy, so Making A New World was a good thing to be doing, to keep active but not have to deal with everything through music straight away. The new album is me dealing with it, but from a less horrific perspective. DAVID: We always try and write what is foremost in our minds, it feels like the most honest thing to do. But we weren’t ready for that in 2018. PETER: The Beatles are my go-to for feeling better about myself and the world. And [the later albums] are quite loose as well, so that’s what I wanted to try and do – to have a confidence in being loose. There’s some Zeppelin in there again, some Free, Dire Straits… you can only do so much with a clean Strat and not sound a bit Knopfler. Which is fine! DAVID: And a bit of every era of Fleetwood Mac, all of which were a fundamental part of our childhood. PETER: We wanted it to have warmth. DAVID: When it came to sequencing, we felt that “You Get Better” would be a good one to end with. I was thinking about Sly & The Family Stone and Parliament, so hopefully it has a little bit of that danceable energy. Although it’s still a very sceptical take on an optimistic song. That’s us – we can’t do things in a straight line. SAM RICHARDS
Flat White Moon is released on April 23 on Memphis Industries
