Field Music - Field Music (20th Anniversary Edition)

An expanded 2-disc edition of their self-titled debut, in celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary. The second disc of this new set includes the first ever vinyl release for the 2006 B-sides collection, Write Your Own History, as well as 3 more rare/unreleased recordings from the band’s formative years, brand new liner notes from former NME writer, James Snodgrass, and archive material from the North East music milieu which gave birth to Field Music, The Futureheads, Maximo Park and more.

Field Music’s debut album arrived when post-punk-influenced guitar music was enjoying a popular renaissance. But where other bands combined skinny jeans and football chants, Peter and David Brewis, along with keyboard-player Andrew Moore, constructed a soundworld which was sonically terse, but brimming with musical detail and sophistication, borrowing from the baroque-pop excursions of Van Dyke Parks, The Left Banke and Todd Rundgren, as much as from Wire and Television.

Setting a template which has sustained the band ever since, the album was self-produced at the band’s own studio space in Sunderland, with the brothers’ lofty ambitions far outstripping their limited experience. “As naive as it might sound, we really wanted to make music which didn’t rely on clichés,” says David, “And, while I don’t think we quite succeeded, I do think that first record stands as something quite unique.”