Yesterday And Today
The Field Is Axel Willner, And His Last Album, Here We Go Sublime, Was One Of The Most Acclaimed Releases Of 2007, Receiving A 9.0 On Pitchfork And Universal Praise. The BBC Called It “One Of Those Rare Albums That Makes You Wonder How You Ever Got By Without It.” The Album Is The Soundtrack To The Spit-Shined Airport Of Your Dreams - Faceless, Futuristic, And Fuzzy. You Could Dance To It, Sleep To It, Or Daydream To It: Just A Versatile Little Album. Now, Willner's Label, Kompakt, Moves Forward With His Sophomore Full Length, Yesterday And Today. On The New Album, Willner Expands His Palette, Continuing The Oblique Sampling Strategy Of From Here We Go Sublime While Building Up The Rhythmic Architecture; The Album Features A Group Of Different Musicians And On The Title Track, Willner Collaborates For The First Time With Battles Drummer John Stanier. Since Startling The World With From Here We Go Sublime, Willner Has Been Much In Demand As A Remixer, With Tracks From Thom Yorke To Battles To Maps Raising His Profile, So That Now Legions Are Gathered, In That Spit-Shined Terminal, Waiting For Their Blissed-Out Departure.
The Field follows his breakout album with one that splits the difference between more of the same and new ideas.
When The Field, a.k.a. Axel Willner, first took critics by storm in 2007, they praised the Swedish microhouse producer for the grace and mood he brought to the dance genre. But as subtly colored as songs like “Sun And Ice” were, the backbeat of Willner’s debut From Here We Go Sublime was disco’s golden standard:…
In case any doubt remained about Axel Willner's desire to be accessible beyond the realm of electronic dance music, his second album as the Field, Yesterday and Today, was licensed by Kompakt for U.S. release on Anti -- the eclectic, Epitaph-distributed label that was, at the time, pushing releases by Neko Case, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Booker T. At the least, it might help him shed some of the false associations that have been made between him and minimal techno, without exception drawn by those who are much more familiar with guitar bands than dance music.
A critical success a couple of years ago, The Field’s debut album ‘From Here We Go Sublime’ switched entirely new audiences onto the potential of ambient techno, to the musi