Interview - Field Music
A Closer Look At Closers - Part 2.
Earlier this month, Blowdry Colossus, Peter Brewis' eagerly awaited solo album under the Daylight Saving Records label, was set for release. This album represents Peter's first solo venture since The Week That Was in 2008. It follows collaborative projects with Paul Smith in Frozen By Sight (2014) and Sarah Hayes in You Tell Me (2019). Crafted over the last year at the Field Music studio in Sunderland, the album features a talented ensemble, including Peter's brother David, Sarah Hayes, and his son Alexander.
The album release faces a slight delay, but three tracks are available to get a taste. In the meantime, I hope you’ll find yourself in the second part of my recent interview with Peter and David Brewis.
We delved into their favourite closing tracks and discussed their approach to concluding records. Part one is below, and part two is more below that.
The Run Out Grooves: Regarding finalising a track listing, do you take soundings from friends, family or colleagues in the studio? Or is it all all your thoughts and process on that?
David Brewis: We've already got more than enough opinions between us and can’t imagine bringing more in.
Peter Brewis: Yeah, I think that's fine. Nobody ever has the time to turn up; all of our mates now have real jobs and stuff. Or they are useless.
David Brewis: We usually begin the album-making process by uploading our mixes into iTunes. This helps us identify key elements like the opening and closing tracks. Once those are decided, we weave through the rest of the album, considering the emotional dynamics between tracks and the comparative tempos. Placing a slower track after a quicker one can make the tempo seem as if it's dragging, which is something we generally aim to avoid.
When we encountered this issue on Making a New World, we focused on finding a transition to make the tempo change feel natural and seamless. We often rearrange tracks in iTunes to experiment with different sequences, aiming to find solutions for any tempo or key changes. As we work through the album, we also think about the emotional dynamics from one track to another. We fill in the middle bits around the established opening and closing tracks. Sometimes, certain tracks just need to go together, and we make those decisions based on various factors, including tempo and emotional resonance.
Peter Brewis: We've been contemplating different types; we’ve never done a long fade-out; it is one of the things I’ve been contemplating, depending on what we do next.
The Run Out Grooves: Like ‘The Day After The Revolution’1 on Pulp’s This Is Hardcore.
Peter Brewis: I think it is more like ‘Europe Endless’ by Kraftwerk on Trans Europe Express. We could have a 30-minute album and then fill the rest with a droning fade-out.
The Run Out Grooves: Robbie Williams used to do them on his solo records; the last song—a big gap on the CD and a hidden track. On one, he left the twenty-minute gap but said, "No, I'm not doing one on this album". I guess in the streaming era, we’ve lost the ability to have that type of wackiness, Track 0 on a CD and so on.
Peter Brewis: Now, it changes the way that people are making music
David Brewis: You need it to be slamming you in the face at the first moment. Don’t build things up slowly; 14 absolute bangers, like a greatest hits.
The Run Out Grooves: Which has brought things full circle, like a Little Richard record.
Peter Brewis: Yeah, which is totally fair enough. You know, I love all the early Beatles records, which are like that, but I’m glad they moved on to other things.
David Brewis: Once you’ve heard the best ten Little Richard songs, you have basically heard all you need.
Peter Brewis: He was never going to go and do a prog concept record.
The Run Out Grooves: Do you have any individual closing tracks from your work that are your favourites, or any that you are less keen on now?
David Brewis: ‘Find A Way To Keep Me’ perhaps followed by ‘Stay Awake’, which has a similar vibe. However, I must admit, the last track on our third School of Language album wasn't successful. I tried to emulate Sly and the Family Stone, but it didn't work.
Peter Brewis: A lesson learned, then.
David Brewis: Exactly. It's not as successful as the rest of the album, but I don't regret it. It's a part of our history.
Peter Brewis: So you wouldn't want to erase it?
David Brewis: No, I'm fine with it. That song was made quickly, and it shows. But it's a part of our journey.
Peter Brewis: There have been moments in Field Music where I've questioned our choices. Should we have taken more than one take?
David Brewis: It's in the historical record now. We move on and learn from it. For instance, we tried a similar style of closing track on Flat White Moon, and it worked much better.
The Run Out Grooves: Other than The Beatles, are there any other big closers that you are fans of?
David Brewis: I’ve spent the last two years listening to only music from the 1950s, so I certainly can’t offer any recent ones.
Peter Brewis: ‘Stay Together’ on the first N.E.R.D.2 album and Beck’s ‘Diamond Bollocks’, although that’s only on the CD3. I was hoping that was Beck’s new direction, contemporary psyche.
The Run Out Grooves: We looked at ‘Debra’ not long ago.
David Brewis: It's a fascinating question. Why do artists choose to sequence their albums in a particular way? It really challenges us to think about an album as a collection of individual tracks and a complete work of art. It's also about the philosophy of listening to music as a temporal experience. What does placing a certain track at the end of an album mean? Is it tucked away because it's considered the weakest link, or is a more deliberate artistic choice involved? Take U2's The Joshua Tree, for example. The hit tracks are placed at the beginning because Kirsty MacColl liked them the most!
The Run Out Grooves: It’s interesting to have Radiohead go from the brink of splitting up over Kid A’s tracklist to A Moon Shaped Pool just being in alphabetical order.
David Brewis: I think the sequencing or the type of closing track we opt for really hinges on our creative mindset at the time. In future projects, we might disregard track order altogether or perhaps venture into creating a concept album with a strong narrative. At one point, we even toyed with the idea of incorporating an overture, like in an opera at the beginning of an album and maybe some 'underture' for the end.
The Run Out Grooves: We spoke about streaming earlier, and one area I think it could open up that we haven’t seen much of is playing with the form. Kanye West continued to edit The Life of Pablo after the release date on streaming platforms because he could, so he did.
David Brewis: The notion of an album's track order has always been a significant part of our artistic process. Even when we were in our mid-20s making our first music record, we had a clear idea of what we wanted an album to be. That commitment to the album as a form of art has remained strong over the years. However, the rise of streaming services and playlist culture has shifted the focus to individual tracks that are immediately catchy, which I find diminishes the art of recorded music. I've chosen a streaming service that respects the album format for that reason.
Peter Brewis: I think it’s interesting that some of the early 50s jazz albums that we love. They've messed around with the track order of the original release.
David Brewis: It's one of the reasons I quite often enjoy listening to live jazz records. Because it's the setting, it’s that's how they play the set live, so it has a shape. Sometimes, the albums don't have because the musicians weren't involved in choosing what the album is going to be.
The Run Out Grooves: So the new record, Peter, is out in September - what have we got to look forward to as a closing track on it?
Peter Brewis: It’s a long, improvised, experimental one. We start with a single piano note and gradually build it into an eight-note chord. It's a conceptual work where the chord essentially covers the whole scale. Then, we deconstruct it back down to that original note. What's particularly interesting is how we've used the piano track to trigger other sounds. We've employed drum replacement technology, not to replace the piano notes but to use them as triggers for other auditory elements. It's a complex setup; honestly, it’s not something we plan to replicate in live performances!
The Run Out Grooves: Maybe in a few years, you’ll be sitting back looking at your discography, and rather than playing a residence like Sparks when you play an album a night or a b-side night, you could be playing a setlist of closing tracks.
David Brewis: We've actually used some of our closing tracks as openers in past sets. For example, 'You're So Pretty' and 'New Thing' could easily be incorporated. So, I think we'd manage quite well in terms of a setlist comprised solely of closing tracks.
Peter Brewis: We've released quite a few singles that are closing tracks, which is somewhat unconventional. It's not the typical commercial approach,
David Brewis: Add it to the list
Peter Brewis: Exactly. It’s another one for our list of terrible commercial ideas. But if listeners are willing to journey through an entire album to reach a single at the end, then that's a win in my book.
Thanks again to Peter and David for their time last month for this discussion. For anyone new to the band - I’m sure you’ll find something to love in their deep back catalogue if you go looking. I’m looking forward to hearing all of Blowdry Colossus, including it’s weird final track!
I actually said ‘Seductive Barry’ in the interview, but that’s wrong.
‘Stay Together’ is the final track of the international rock version of In Search Of…
US version of 1998’s Mutations.
It’s true that in the age of streaming, there’s no longer the narrative of a full album. So much music is released daily and so many new artists want to be heard and the surefire way to grab attention is a catchy hooky single. Sad to see a deficit in attention spans. Now a Little Richard Prog album- that’s something else!!