In many ways, The Field's Looping State of Mind is the unintentional dance-pop sequel to Wolfgang Voigt's ambient masterpiece Pop. The album was released under his alias Gas just a little over a decade ago, and yet its connections to Axel Willner's latest sketch of subtle microhouse are interesting to note, and help in trying to understand his music. Gas' Pop is simply one of the most intriguing ambient albums ever recorded. The way it used lush, fragmented loops of deep sonics and almost subconscious drones was, and still is astounding. The album's subtle incorporation of nature samples, which often times is difficult to decipher whether it's coming from the song itself or your own backyard, created the ultimate effect of entranced disillusion. It's the state of being completely withdrawn from your surroundings, enraptured by lush repetition and subconscious atmosphere.
Looping State of Mind is similar, in that repetition is key. Right from the opening number, "Is This Power", we are thrown into a seemingly irrelevant electro-loop, which quickly forms into a pleasant modulation as a deep bass groove confidently follows it. Throughout its course there is a gently layered film of what sounds like VHS-drone, most audible as the song unwinds towards its middle half, before becoming drenched in a another muted bass line and its original loop. The equally structured "It's Up There" tosses around harder beats, psychedelic drones, and hazy vocal blips, imitating the sounds of a strobe-frenzied club while all of its swinging inmates are high on combination LSD, ecstasy, and codeine. In contrast the album has its moment in the moonlight on "Then It's White", featuring a reflective piano melody and lightly cascading vocal pattern that gently glides across the soft arrangement, creating a mournful and utterly disorientated sound.
Looping State of Mind is the kind of dance album that's bound to grant rewarding listens, whether it's blasted through the loudspeakers of underground clubs, or the headphones of a casual listener. Such diversity allows you to sit back and study it, or get up and shake your ass. Though no matter how you experience it, its subtle complexities and woven grooves make it a different experience every time. Looping State of Mind clearly holds the deep, subsonic traits of minimal techno and microhouse, although I must respectfully conclude that this is what real trance music should sound like. Not that it fits the genre, but instead the very definition of the word, as it's all too easy to get lost into the looping state of mind.
[The Field Myspace]
[Buy Looping State of Mind from Kompakt]
Interesting reead
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