Fieldhead – They Shook Hands For Hours

Been listening to this gorgeous album over the last few days and it easily warrants album of the week…

Fieldhead’s debut album looks like being another special release from the Home Assembly label and is a must pre-order as you will also be getting a limited edition bonus disk which includes remixes from the likes of Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, Seaworthy and The Declining Winter to name but a few…

What The Label Say:

It is with great pleasure that we announce details of our third release, due in the autumn of 2009 (release date – 2nd November). It comes from Leeds resident, Paul Elam, who records his solo works as Fieldhead. Paul is a full-time member of The Declining Winter and recently contributed a remix to the bonus CD of ‘Haunt The Upper Hallways’ (HAM002). His remix of ‘Cull’ is also featured on Northerner’s CD ‘The Ridings’ (HAM001).

‘They Shook Hands For Hours’ is his debut release and takes the minimalist, glitchy, low end rumble of Machinefabriek, Phillip Jeck and The Caretaker but contains arrangements that are concise, structured and almost pop orientated in their brevity. The dusty, grainy textures can be reminiscent of Khonnor’s textbook 2005 album ‘Handwriting’, but in this case the ambient cinematic drones of Stars of the Lid and Labradford replace the ghosts of lo-fi pop. It is no wonder that the artist divulges his number one influence as tape hiss, but in no way should it be taken that this is a minimalist or avant-garde work. The melodicisms are notable from the opening ‘This Train Is A Rainbow’ with its Labradford style guitar twangs through to the echoes of Aphex Twin’s dusty loops on ‘I’m Fond Of Maps’. The warmth of ‘real’ instruments is always audible, particularly violins which swoop and soar in the wide open landscapes of ‘He’d Found The Sea’, recalling Manchester acoustic-electro favourites The Boats.

Boomkat Review:

Following on from releases by Northerner and The Declining Winter, the Home Assembly Music imprint makes it three-from-three with this excellent solo outing from Paul Elam (a full-time member of the aforementioned Declining Winter). On the accompanying press notes, the label itself levels comparisons with Machinefabriek and The Caretaker, and you can certainly hear where they’re coming from, although neither of those artists is especially likely to be dishing out Dilla-esque beats on their opening track the way Elam does on ‘This Train Is A Rainbow’.

Similarly, ‘Document One’ is very much in the same vein as Lone or Keaver & Brause – perhaps even Bibio’s recent work – in its re-jigging of modern beat compressions with old, faded source material. There’s enough beatless material here to destabilise those sorts of categorisations however: during ‘Of October’s scratchy glitch orchestrations and the Tim Hecker-style tonal drifts of ‘Half Names’ a different picture emerges. This hauntological hip-hop opus is really quite special, and certainly with songs like ‘I’m Fond Of Maps’ (think Burial, circa 1920) and ‘He’d Found The Sea’ there’s an indication of exciting things to come from this artist. Highly recommended.

Purchase options here

www.homeassemblymusic.com

www.myspace.com/fieldhea