The Field – Yesterday and Today

(Kompakt Records, 2009)

The Field is one of the monikers used by Swedish based techno artist Axel Willner. Yesterday and Today is his sophomore effort and is highly atmospheric in its use of electronics.

Willner slowly builds into Yesterday and Today. The environmental techno opener, I Have the Moon, You Have the Internet, sends the listener into their own world, transfixed on nothing in particular. The repetitious and soothing beats empty the mind and, despite the electronic framework, it all feels very natural.

Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime sends the relaxation levels up another rank with its addition of harmonious vocals before Leave It totally disrupts the peace. A driving and repetitive beat pounds away to the back of your head for a solid three minutes until a neat little rhythm emerges and that pounding all of a sudden becomes distant and unnoticeable until you notice that you’re taking great pleasure from it. 

The main reason for my interest in this album was the presence of drummer John Stainer (Battles, Helmet, Tomahawk). He makes an appearance on the title track which turns out to be fairly nondescript club number with just a hint of psychedelia. The More That I Do was the one single off Yesterday and Today, and by the time we get to it the album has taken a whole new dynamic; the mood a whole lot more lively. The pulsing, 15 minute long Sequenced, rounds out the album by bringing everything back down a notch and once again spacing out the listener.

The album is highly ambient, minimal techno where long, repetitive conceptions are the order of the day (the six tracks clock in at a tad over 60 minutes), and while Yesterday and Today, at times, does border on boredom, for the most part it remains largely captivating.