Spring is an anxious time for dance music afficionados the world over. No more so than in the fashion world, it's months in advance that the likely boys and girls make their pitches for dominance of the big season a couple of months down the road. This year's Miami Winter Music Conference is in full swing as I write, ploughing the road as the largest dance music industry conference. Unfortunately In Fact, Ah's travel budget couldn't quite stretch stateside this March (El Commandant P and myself will give you a good first hand account of Primaverasound in Barcelona come June though, thanks to El Commandant P's logistical forsight!). Anyways, if you need one picture worth a thousand words to understand Miami Winter Music Conference check out this party-goer!

In Miami each year in March many tracks will see their first tentative steps towards mass dancefloor consumption via hot off the burner CD-Rs nonchalantly slipped into DJ sets. A lot of what we European's remember as _that_ moment on a dancefloor in 2007 see their first light outside gestation in and around Miami WMC time and we will dance to them in Berlin next New Year's eve and wonder at a majestic 2007 for losing ourselves on a dancefloor.

Today sees the release of a very much anticipated record (pitchfork called, they want their hype back!) by Swedish artist The Field titled From Here We Go Sublime on Cologne's uber-prolific and super-duper Kompakt Records. Some of you may have had your interest piqued by appearances for The Field on recent Kompakt compilation releases Total 7 and Pop Ambient which included some stand out early cuts from The Field. Maybe this release is what Kompakt buddha Michael Mayer was smiling about so much at his recent tearing down of the Temple Bar Music Centre. Many watchers of the electronic/dance music savannah had penciled in Gui Boratto's recent release of the excellent Chromophobia (also on Kompakt) as the event of the spring in the world of full length artist albums. Sorry about the dig in the ribs from your label mate Gui!

The Field's pitch for the sound of summer 2007 melds so many grade A components together so beautifully that it already is a very convincing strike for the defining sound of the year and yes, it’s March just now. The Field is Axel Willner of Stockholm and a lot more:

My Bloody Valentine-esque?
Nathan Fake on MDMA?
Anyone for a nice warm cup of shoegaze ambient techno?
Glacial nordic soundscapes a la Sigur Ros?
Full on pop punch-in-the-guts immediacy similar to the raft of Swedish indie-pop we saw in 2006 from the likes of I'm From Barcelona and Lo-Fi-Fnk?
Slowdive meets The Postal Service?
If Enya ever parties, do you think this is what she gets her funk on to?
Shifty scandanavian introspective pitstops reminiscent of The Knife?
M83 with 4/4?

Resident Advisor said in a 5/5 review:

"This is music for imagining a utopian future to, for dreaming of running through alpine fields with that cute girl on the other side of the dancefloor and for hoping that this tune lasts forever and you never have to open your eyes. Simply stated, it’s truly beautiful music. At this point, words run out... The Field knows some deep magic, the likes of which we probably haven’t seen since the ‘90s heyday of ‘Selected Ambient Works’ or ‘The Brown Album’. Frankly it doesn’t really matter what music you’re normally into, I think you still need this record. It’ll make you a better person."

As much as I want to be at a party in Manhattan and listen to James Murphy grind a room down in de(FA)-lerium after LCD Soundsystem's Sound Of Silver, that really is just North American Scum compared to this.

This is an album parameterised by labels such as nu-Trance, Microhouse, Minimal Techno etc. But with this one, there are no barriers as often encountered by new listeners to figureheads of the minimal/micro genre such as Villalobos. You don’t need to be on the shiniest new candy out of a backstreet East-Berlin illicit narcotics factory and on a sunlit dancefloor in a post-industrial decrepit techno hell-hole/heaven near Ostbahnhof at 10a.m. on a Sunday morning to be struck by it (although I’m guessing that’s gonna work preeety good too). Get it, listen to it on a sunny morning on the way to work. Melt away.

For all the beautiful harmony, stick-a-fork-in-me-I’m-done hooks and emotional rollercoasting, what with all the indie pop/rock bloggers falling over themselves for the ‘crossover appeal’ in this album, one may be forgiven for asking, could it work on a dancefloor?

Bodytonic, Electric City, Remedy, whoever, I do not care, get this on in Dublin ASAP!

No more than The Bull McCabe, after a listen or two you'll be feeling "T'is my Field!"

Get over to The Field’s myspace right now and wrap yourself up in a stream of Everyday. Two other tracks from the album A Paw In My Face and The Deal are available to stream over at imeem and you can purchase the whole thing direct from Kompakt’s swish MP3 store right now!

Now, I just need a last minute ticket to Miami to check out how this whole thing sounds poolside and I can wrap up the review for you...

tags: music

Published by Paul.