The title of the Field's third album, Looping State of Mind, might have you thinking that producer Axel Willner is getting back to basics. Especially after he strayed, with only intermittent success, from his instantly recognizable template on his 2009 sophomore record, Yesterday and Today. After all, at its simplest, techno is music that can be built with just a few loops. And Willner's first few records certainly made effective use of the form, layering shimmering loops of voice and synth and guitar on each track until he'd built a fluffy and infinitely soothing wall of sound.
Immersive and repetitive, the Field's first singles and 2007 debut album, From Here We Go Sublime, were like ambient records disguised as both experimental techno and luscious pop. So is Looping State of Mind a return to that sound, the one that made the Field a crossover favorite with rock kids a few years back? Not exactly. In a few instances it's barely recognizable as "the Field" at all. It may be still be built from loops, but Willner's never orchestrated so many of them so artfully into such dense and infinitely listenable soundscapes.
Good thing, too, because the last few years have seen a lot of bedroom producers become briefly famous for ambient records disguised as pop, for amorphous electronic doodles disguised as songs. Instead of coasting, as one of the inadvertent models for the current "chill" thing, a producer who'd probably earn infinite props just for repeating himself, Willner decided to put 99 percent of his acolytes to shame here. True, there are still tracks, like "It's Up There", that recall Willner's best-loved stuff, but even they feel richer, like the early Field in 3D and high-def. "Arpeggiated Love" is on the one hand a dead-ringer for the propulsive, ecstatic sound-wash of From Here We Go Sublime. But Willner now fleshes it out with shiver-inducing soul music harmonies that owe less to sleek German techno than gospel-tinged American house. True, he was quoting classic soul group the Flamingos as early as Sublime, but he's never been so overt in dipping into dance music's global history.
As that might suggest, Looping often strays far from the Field we know, into territory that recalls deep house, post-punk, shoegaze, noise-rock, and cosmic techno. And he manages to swirl them all together in a way that makes his earliest attempts to fuse ambient and trance feel like gorgeous apprentice work. Yesterday and Today sometimes sounded hesitant, as if Willner didn't quite know how to make his music fresh for a second time. On Looping he packs all seven tracks with curveballs, and each new direction feel successful, vital, surprising.
At one point on opener "Is This Power", everything drops away except for an eerie bass twang that recalls Joy Division or the Cure circa "A Forest", but when the boogie bass finally drops back in, you're not only reminded that this is dance music, it's easily the funkiest Field tune you've probably yet heard. The rhythms on Looping are more varied than anything the Willner's done before. Though he hasn't entirely abandoned that programmed motorik pulse that drove Sublime, his work with live bands over the last few years has clearly fed into Looping. "Then It's White" summons a Yorke-less Radiohead, with the way the drums subtly mesh human fluency and digital tech. And that's not even counting the Amnesiac-like mix of pensive piano and mournful, computer-warped vocals.
Despite the sometimes winning simplicity of his music, Willner was no slouch as a producer before. Yet listening to this album, there's no doubt he's grown way more assured and inventive over the last two years. And he's brought all his skill to bear on Looping, as composer and arranger and texturologist, in order to build something this simultaneously sweeping and subtle, deep and immediate. It could still alienate those perpetually pining for copies of "A Paw in My Face" or "Sun and Ice". But if they listen more deeply, they might just hear Willner’s masterpiece-to-date.
