FIELD MUSIC - Commontime

Field Music's 2010 LP, (Measure), was staff favourite of the year, and this Sunderland duo remain one of the more criminally unsung pop bands around today. It's easy to understand why, of course: they're prone to proggy detours, and multi-part suites, the death-knell of 21st Century attention spans; and their instrumental and studio proficiency is so articulate and controlled, it can border on being cool to the touch. But there is no greater heir to the mantle once occupied by acts like XTC than the Brewis brothers. Two gentlemen from northern England who mesh every sonic idea into a shimmering tapestry that is equally intellectually and instinctually appealing.

"There are artists who manage to translate good press into commercial success. There are artists who succeed despite the best efforts of music critics, as frequently evidenced by the charts and the schedules of the world’s stadium venues. And then there are artists who have to settle for having the phrase “critically acclaimed” attached to them so often that it almost becomes part of their name. It is, fairly obviously, to the ranks of the Critically Acclaimed that Field Music belong. Over the past 11 years, the output of Sunderland’s Brewis brothers – five albums, a soundtrack, a B-sides compilation, a covers compilation and two solo releases each – has attained rapturous reviews, a Mercury prize nomination and the public approval of an admittedly peculiar mix of celebrity fans, including Prince, Al Kooper and Vic Reeves – which sounds not unlike the seating plan for the world’s most awkward dinner party. For all its baroque string arrangements, jazzy chord sequences, vocal harmonies and beautiful, slick production, Commontime never sounds sumptuous. There’s something precise, carefully considered and economical about everything on it, from the twitchy funk of single The Noisy Days Are Over, to It’s a Good Thing’s off-kilter take on 80s pop, to the gorgeous piano-and-strings ballad The Morning Is Waiting." The Guardian