This Is Our Jam: The Field, “Then It’s White”

Until now, the music of Swedish minimal-techno artist The Field has always struck me as transportational—quite literally. Whenever I listen to Yesterday and Today (2009) and Here We Go Sublime (2007), I imagine icy tundra or forested mountains whooshing by at a hundred miles an hour. I’ve even listened to The Field traveling on a bullet train in Japan, and I can honestly say that the experience was mesmerizing. Yet, with new single “Then It’s White,” it seems that Axel Wilner has finally decided to get off the train.

In the past, Wilner created his music from truncated loops snatched from larger melodies, which he then chopped up and parceled out, one tiny package at a time. While “Then It’s White” still employs that same technique, the hypnotic tightness of songs like "A Paw in My Face," has instead been replaced by hollow, ghostly vocal samples and cavernous spaces. A ruminative piano line quietly carries the pieces along, forming what is certainly The Field’s most thoughtful composition to date. While some may miss the texture and drive of songs past, "Then It's White" turns out to be a wonderful transition; Axel Wilner may not have reached his destination, but a rest along the way is welcome.