Audio By Carbonatix
Stockholm-born Axel Willner has, since 2006, braided together two
full-length albums from the chromosomes of minimal techno and trance.
His latest, Yesterday & Today (ANTI-/Kompakt), further
captures aural atmospheric swatches interspersed with snippets of
blissful chatter.
Yet regardless of this sonic sensibility and his moniker, it comes
to light that the Field has never made field recordings. No parts of
Yesterday & Today originated from Willner wandering around
with a tape recorder in his new home of Berlin, where he moved six
months ago. Rather, Willner says, while cloistered at a laptop and
bouncing among Berlin, Stockholm, and Cologne, he built the songs from
loops from his record collection, selected for their romantic
impact.
Then he revisited his main inspirations for the album — the
collected works of Giorgio Moroder, the film scores of Ennio Morricone,
and the visual design of director Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic
Suspiria. From these came Willner’s use of gentle distortions,
elongated perspectives, and moments of vivid saturation. Yesterday
& Today is composed of just six tracks, most averaging eight to
ten minutes in length, and all are more concerned with diffused flutter
than with steam-built crescendo.
Any aura that infiltrated the record came during studio time Willner
set up in the Swedish countryside to record acoustic treatments from
his touring band. Battles drummer John Stanier also contributed
sessions, helping add to the German-rock underpinnings most apparent in
the album’s title track. (Willner also cites Neu! as a percussive
favorite.)
And true, Yesterday & Today displays more so-called
kosmiche live-jam flares than its predecessor, From Here We Go
Sublime. But it’s ultimately nothing celestial that most informed
the effort. Rather, Willner says, his greatest influence is something
more tangible: the seas surrounding his homeland.
“I do miss something from Sweden, and it isn’t wide skies or
whatever people might compare to my music,” he says. “The sky is always
beautiful, but I don’t respect and fear it the same way I do the ocean.
Water is so complex, and I have always loved it. When I listen to
music, I listen to the arrangements, how the chords flow into and under
each other. Maybe that is because of where I’m from. Water has always
spoken to me, now even when I’m not with it.”
