Until we meet the sky --- Solar Fields --- 2011 (Ultimae)
This could be a bit of a gamble for me. Sometimes, as regular readers know, I just take a chance on a name I like, knowing nothing of the artiste involved. This time it appears I've selected an electronica band, in fact, one guy, Magnus Birgersson, who goes under the name of Solar Fields. This is his tenth album, including one videogame score apparently, so he obviously has a following. There's not that much electronic music I like, with Air, Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis being the only real forays I have made into that arena, but I'm sure there's plenty of good music in that genre, and perhaps this is one of them. So let's hit play and see how we go.
Well, it starts almost inaudibly, on a slowly rising synth line that takes over a minute of the nine-plus it runs for before “From the next end” can even be heard as music, the synth droning on into the second minute with the same monotone sound, but other synthy sounds can now be heard faintly in the background, some drifting in and then back out, like breezes that sigh and then fall away, or rising waves on an ocean that as easily recede. I think I can hear a voice in there among all that synthery (hey! There's another new word made up!) but what it's saying or singing is impossible to make out, more like a chant or murmur really. And still the music rises on the same line, going now for the fourth minute, meaning we're almost halfway through and it still sounds like someone tuning up.
Okay, well it's nine minutes and change, so I guess there's still time for something to happen. However, you wouldn't want to be impatient, or checking out a one-minute sample of this track to see if it was worth buying! This gives a whole new meaning to the term slowburner, with the emphasis on slow! Now it's getting louder, more distinct and at five-and-a-half minutes in I can hear for the first time some percussion, which helps define the track a smidge more, but it's really more like a slow heartbeat than any real drumming, and essentially the same melody is carrying on --- if indeed you can call this repeated drone a melody.
Seven minutes now, and I really doubt this is going to suddenly metamorphose into anything. I can see this one long passage going on right to the end. I have to say, for a nine-minute piece of music I am not impressed. I have no idea at all why that had to be so long: there was, to my ears, nothing in it, and yet it stretched out over that interminable length. Why? Is this the way electronic musicians normally approach their music? I sure hope not, but I'm a bit of a virgin in this territory, so I'll just have to wait and see. “Broken radio echo”, a much shorter track, at least introduces a nice piano line, just a run up and down the keyboard really, wouldn't call it a melody, and that droning synth is still in the background, having been carried over in a direct segue from the opening track.
Is this what they call minimalist music? Sounds like the guy's learning how to play piano! He's not, I know that, but it's kind of the same few notes repeated, up and down the scale, an octave higher here, an octave lower there. Then some swirling synth flies past like a rush of wind, and in the same way is gone, leaving the piano playing. And now the track is coming to an end. So that makes a total of nearly thirteen minutes, and I really can't say I've heard any real music. It still all sound like some sort of tuneup or overture, as “Singing machine”, which is seven minutes long, takes the field. With a title like that, can I be foolish to at least expect some proper music?
Well, at first it's all that long drony synth (is that
still the same melody carried over from the very start of the album? It seems never to have stopped) with some other little effects coming in here and there, the piano from “Broken radio echo” is back again, but it fades away as quickly, and already we're halfway through the track and I still can't hear any discernible melody. Ambient? Well yeah, I guess so, though I've heard much more together and varied ambient music than this. Maybe it's all meant to make up one big track, but even then, there's not that much variation between even these three pieces. I'm a bit lost, to be honest. The piano is back for a few more notes as the song winds down then it all fades out on spacey synth.
Of course, I shouldn't say it fades, as it really doesn't: it segues, again, directly into “After midnight, they speak”, but it sounds pretty much like the rest of what's gone before. I suppose this would make a great soundtrack for a documentary about exploring deep space or even the ocean, and it is very relaxing and chill-out, but I'm just not hearing anything I can pin down, either as a good or bad track. It really is like one long continuous piece of music, but basically the same all the way through. So far. Oh, there's our friend the piano again, just before the last minute of this shorter track, and again it's only there for a few moments before the synth takes over again as the song ends and merges with “When the worlds collide”.
This at least introduces a new sound, a deeper, doomier synth with tiny flicks on a hi-hat (though it's probably a Linn or something programmed) with a little bass drum beginning to give the music, nearly twenty-five minutes in, something of a recognisable melody and rhythm. Warbly keyboards build up eerily in the background, very 90s new-wave, everything though still funeral-slow. Suddenly, pops, fizzes, and slightly harder drums kick a tiny bit of life into the song, though it maintains its stately, unhurried pace despite this quickening of the basic rhythm. There is a building sense of drama about this track though, and it's the first I'll remember, the first that's made any sort of impression on me, the first on which I've not been waiting --- in vain --- for something to happen.
The longest track (by a few seconds only) is up next, ten minutes of “Dialogue with a river”, which at least opens on bright synth with some bass, and for the first time that long, long, droning synth that accompanied us all the way from the first track seems to have been left behind. There's a deep synth line behind the melody, yes, but it's a different one. There's a sense of nature about this piece, certainly evoking the title, with little hops and skips on the keys and trickling piano putting you in mind of rivers and babbling brooks and streams. A sharp, guitar-like sound cuts across the tune then at the three-minute mark, but rather than do anything spectacular it seems just to fade away again, perhaps as if being carried downriver, out of our range of hearing?
The track has now settled into another slow and measured rhythm, graceful and flowing as the river from which it takes its title, some sounds now like birdsong and water splashing as the heavy synth fades away in the distance but then seems to stage a comeback. Drums cutting in now, perhaps the music is about to take a left turn? Hmm, yes indeed. Bit of a funk groove coming in, with vocals subsumed somewhere in the mix, far far down, and a wailing synth with some other keys coming over the top of it. A blast of feedback guitar, just for a second, and now, unless I'm very wrong and have misjudged this track, we'll have a very slow fade out of a minute to the end of the piece. The drums have dropped away, the effects receded, and we're left with humming synth to wind us down.
(Weirdly, someone has actually uploaded the entire album on Youtube, so here it is!)
For a ten-minute track I guess it wasn't that bad, and the fact that this is all being created by one guy has got to be praised and given proper recognition, but then, Vangelis is one guy, as is Mike Oldfield, and look at the music they produce! Well, maybe I'm missing something; maybe all Birgensson's music isn't like this. Or maybe it is. Anyway, “Forgotten” is a short track, carried on again spacey synthesiser with some bass guitar and, well, more synth. Gets a little brassy there near the end, which is nice. Different certainly, with a somewhat oriental feel about it, then we're into “Night traffic city”, another long one, almost ten minutes itself, just shy.
Starts off with some nice groovy bass anyway, very very low hi-hat or cymbal, synth building again in the background, with a nice little keyboard melody playing over it, some more very buzzy synth, and some nice powerful, almost choral synth chiming in then at the halfway point, building a nice little melody. It certainly is a lot more powerful, driven and forceful than any of what has gone before. In fact, to some degree, “When the worlds collide” and this have marked a seachange in the album, where it's ceased to be one continuous --- and not very interesting, it has to be said --- piece of music, and has now started to diversify into other, more coherent and separate melodies, even songs. It's quite obvious at this point that the album --- in fact I would assume all of Solar Fields' catalogue --- is totally instrumental, with perhaps the odd vocal line here or there, and as such these kind of recordings are always a little hard to review, but even then I usually have more to work with than I have here. It's hard to single out anything as all that different, though this one does veer a little away from the standard theme on the album, standing out a little more.
The piano is back for another few short notes as the piece comes to a close, then rather surprisingly it comes back in, mostly bass piano, it's true, for the intriguingly-titled “Sombrero”, but if I had expected with a title like that this track to be Solar Fields' “Moonshine” --- as in, for the melody and tempo to change dramatically and take a real left turn in terms of style, as on “Tubular Bells II” --- I am sorely disappointed, as the music remains slow, downbeat though with some interesting synth and bass work, and indeed some quite effective short pauses between the runs. Percussion suddely kicks in and the synth and piano get a little more loud and insistent, and there's a definite melody running through this.
This takes us into the last long track, nine minutes of “Last step in vacuum” (you have to wonder where the guy gets titles for these tracks?) which comes in on a slow, moody, deep synth line with other synthy bits going on in and around it, and it sounds like, if the rest of the album is anything to go by, this will be a long drawn-out line that will extend at least a third into the track. And yes, we're now three minutes into the nine and the same basic melody is taking us on into the fourth, though now there is a slight chord change and the synth gets deeper, a real bassy keyboard joining the main synth, then the percussion ramps up slightly and everything gets a bit louder, a deep brassy synth making its voice heard, and then it all kind of fades off towards the closing minute.
The title track then is another direct segue, in a return to the opening style of the album, with essentially the very same melody just carrying on through, percussion playing a slightly more upfront role but the dominant instrument is still that deep booming synth. The track picks up a little speed now, the melody becoming better formed as other keyboard parts come in, the drums leading the charge as a wailing high-end keyboard carries the next part of the melody. For some reason I am at a total loss to explain, this track, the title one, gives a feeling of triumph and victory. I have no idea why, it's just how it comes across to me. I guess there's more in this music than I had realised.
The closer, fittingly titled “Epilogue”, carries the ending theme of “Until we meet the sky” as it fades slowly down on retreating synth, and various little keyboard effects pepper the tune, a bit of that piano coming in and then leaving again, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, there's a huge drumroll, keyboard attack and just as suddenly it stops, and we're left with a slow fadeout to close, ending an extremely enigmatic album.
I couldn't tell you I love this, I couldn't say I hate it, in fact I couldn't even tell you that I understand it. As I say, this is one of my first forays into electronica --- if that's what this is --- so I don't know, maybe all this type of music is this way, and this album is typical of the genre. But it takes a lot of getting used to. I expect my music to start at some point, and this mostly feels like it was more a warm-up, and introduction to a main event that never happened.
That said, I'll admit it's left me with some sort of impression: whether good or bad I don't yet know. But if it's affected me in any way, made me think, made me wonder, I guess it can't all be bad. You know, I may just listen to this through again sometime. Just not right now.
TRACKLISTING
1. From the next end
2. Broken radio echo
3. Singing machine
4. After midnight, they speak
5. When the worlds collide
6. Dialogue with a river
7. Forgotten
8. Sombrero
9. Night traffic city
10. Last step in vacuum
11. Until we meet the sky
12. Epilogue