Electronic Sound May 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 32

ALBUM REVIEWS

‘Rise Up’ could be a refracted take on
what we used to call progressive house.
Sleek tracks such as ‘Feature Length’
sound like a mythical collaboration
between Dave Angel and Orbital circa
their brown period. There are also
mysterious, brooding moments that draw
heavily on 1980s horror themes. The
biggest jolt comes with the closer, ‘To
The Limit’, which is akin to an offcut
from ‘Power, Corruption And Lies’ era
New Order, more of an eclectic Haçienda
rocker than anything else on the album.

IN FIELDS

Phantoms
DESIRE

Forging a new union of man and
machine – with a little help from some
ghosts
“We like the open-ended meaning of
it,” says Ed Cox, one half of In Fields,
explaining the ambiguous name that
he and Raoul Marks adopted for their
band. “Raoul was interested in those
videos where sound creates shapes with
real-life materials, like iron shavings
on top of a speaker, but the name
also has connotations of being out in
the wilderness. It’s a link between
technology and nature, which is what
we’re trying to achieve with our music.
Something made with machines that also
feels real, made by something alive.”
In Fields’ debut album, ‘Phantoms’, is a
record that is intentionally and rigorously
faceless. Inspired by nights out in sweaty
clubs where you have no idea who is
DJing and no idea what they are playing,
there’s a sense of venturing into the
unknown and no telling where the music
might go next. The result is something
deftly nuanced with a relentless focus
on trying to evoke a mood of being
surprised.
Throbbing, urgent, low-slung cuts like

Repetition is key, as with most
instrumental electronic music, but
Cox and Marks keep things fresh by
adding little twists and turns, tiny sonic
events and interstitial developments.
Dance music has often been criticised
as nothing more than repeated
loops and while it’s true that part of
‘Phantoms’ is skewed towards basic
linear arrangements of sounds, there is
also that aspiration towards a supposed
organic quality which Ed Cox speaks of.
It’s an elusive ingredient, as many
electronic musicians have discovered, but

it’s something that In Fields bestow upon
‘Phantoms’ principally through actively
leaving in mistakes and imperfections.
Sometimes it’s a note in the wrong place,
or elements not gelling quite as they
should do, or just a feeling that the duo
are trying to wrestle the tracks under
control. The bass wobbles, the percussion
is a little out of sync, melodies start
in slightly curious places. The effect is
subtle enough to seem natural, rather
than anything like the