Flat White Moon’ is the eighth studio album from indie veterans Field Music. Commenced before 2020’s ‘Making A New World’ had even been released, the Brewis brothers called on the music they loved as kids for the primary sonic influences, using the upbeat disposition of those classic rock sounds as a counterpoint to the bleak, highly personal nature of many of the album’s themes. It’s fair to assert that Field Music don’t make bad albums, but it’s still worth highlighting the considerable quality of their latest, ‘Flat White Moon’. Shimmering opening track ‘Orion From The Street’ features cascading piano lines which array themselves in the soundstage before you, wider percussive aspects framing a sensory carnival. The detail is taken very seriously indeed and it’s noticeable just how alive the bass and acoustic guitar sound across the whole record.
As musicians, brothers David and Peter Brewis are able to pay homage to these records in their own way, blending the influence of their parents’ sophisti-pop and Brit-funk records into the slightly anachronistic sounds they’ve experimented with over the past few decades as Field Music.
‘Not When You’re In Love’ comes on like ‘I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun’ before frenetic percussion makes full use of the stereo spectrum. The Brewis brothers’ consistently inventive capacity for building an angular musical landscape is remarkable and the clear, near silent vinyl Optimal cut that I’ve played often this year is a joy to experience.
With their latest collection, “Flat White Moon“, arriving this Friday, Peter Brewis took the time to discuss some of these influences with us. “David and me were lucky that our parents were the perfect age to grow up alongside the explosion of popular music from the early ’60s onwards,” he shares. “Our mam especially, being a youth worker, kept up with mainstream UK contemporary pop music pretty much ’til the end of the century. The records that she bought and played throughout our childhood were pretty much dismissed by me and David when we went ‘alternative’ and sought out our own musical choices—then when we rediscovered them it was a little surprising how much of it has become part of our musical makeup.
The album Flat White Moon,
The Fat Angel Sings 