Field Music, London Scala

Field Music

March 3, 2010

Field Music are avant-pop doyens. That sure sounds pretentious but it’s shorthand for “Field Music should be selling out the Royal Festival Hall but audiences’ attention-spans just aren’t big enough to let that happen”. They sell out the Scala no sweat, which marks the well-deserved success of their comeback record Field Music (Measure), but tonight – while a great platform for their instrument-swapping skills, astounding musicianship and general loveliness – lacks magic.

It feels taut, with let-go occurring only in bundles between the music, incongruously. This isn’t in a way that the music feels mechanical, tricksy or other such, more that the Scala’s sound techs take around 30 minutes to get the sound right. The imperfections are brightly-lit among the mammothly-varied set, where the striking counterpoint between all-too-serious performance and deadly-funny audience-interaction becomes apparent.

Even after opening with a nervous take of ‘Give It Lose It Take It’, it’s a given that the audience at the Scala are lapping up Field Music’s rebirth of the guitar band. Though after seeing them twice this year without the addition of a piano, the bigger show makes the flaws more visible.  With the added piano, the songs don’t feel as tight as they should. Though saying that, criticism of a set including the stunning pop-epic ‘Share The Words’ has to be tempered, sated and taken relatively.

Endless comical chat between songs is lovely but oddly apologetic; it detracts from the hardy determination in the vocals on ‘Shorter Shorter’. It’s odd then that School of Language track ‘Rockist Pt. 4′, from the School Of Language album, is tonight’s highlight, its contrasts more marked and assured than on much of the show. Sure, that’s due to the clearer-cut stop/start nature of the song in comparison with Field Music’s wilder, even less predictable variation, but there shouldn’t be so many dips.

‘The Rest Is Noise’ is bass-heavy through fault of the sound techs, though its heavy prog passage makes up for the fallings in sound. To contrast with that, the funky riffing and more open, timeless passages of ‘Each Time Is A New Time’ are note-perfect. David Brewis’ falsetto is similarly assured throughout, when employed, and ‘Effortlessly’ sounds just that.

By all standards, this show is fantastic; by Field Music’s own, it falls short.

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