Open Here is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Field Music. Released by Memphis Industries on 2 February 2018, the album combines elements of alternative rock and chamber pop, and includes a wider range of musical instruments than previous Field Music albums, predominantly featuring flutes, horns, and string instruments. The band attempted to create a unique instrumental combination for each song; Field Music's David and Peter Brewis felt more confident about expanding the range of instruments on the album, after having made a film soundtrack with an orchestra just before the recording of Open Here began.
Open Here is more overtly political in its themes than Field Music's previous albums, with many of the songs inspired by David and Peter Brewis' frustration with the result of the Brexit referendum vote. Songs like "Goodbye to the Country" and "Count It Up", the latter of which focuses on societal privileges enjoyed by white members of the middle- and upper-class, directly address Brexit; David Brewis described them as "definitely the angriest songs I have ever written". Other songs were inspired by David and Peter Brewis' children and the responsibilities of parenting, including "No King No Princess", which speaks out against social conceptions of femininity and masculinity.
Despite occasionally serious or cynical topics, Field Music attempted to infuse a sense of optimism and fun within Open Here; the opening track "Time in Joy", in particular, was described by Peter Brewis as an effort to confront difficult times "with a deliberate sense of fun". Open Here was the last of five consecutive albums Field Music recorded at their home studio in Sunderland, which was to be demolished shortly after the album was completed. Field Music involved a large number of guest musicians in recording the album, including saxophonist Pete Fraser, trumpeter Simon Dennis, flutist Sarah Hayes, and singer Liz Corney of The Cornshed Sisters, as well as the band's usual string quartet.
"Count It Up" was the first single from Open Here, and a music video was released for the song. Additional singles included "Time in Joy" and "Share a Pillow". The album received positive reviews, and appeared on several year-end lists of the best albums of 2018. Several reviewers compared Open Here to the work of such artists as David Bowie, Talking Heads, Steely Dan, Prince, Peter Gabriel, and XTC.
Background
Open Here is the sixth studio album by Field Music, the English rock band consisting of the brothers David and Peter Brewis. A follow-up to their 2016 album Commontime, it was released through their label Memphis Industries. In a press release, David Brewis said: "Where Commontime felt like a distillation of all of the elements that make up Field Music, [Open Here] feels like an expansion; as if we're pushing in every direction at once to see how far we can go." The news release also described the album as "bigger in scale, and grander than anything Field Music have done before", and compared it to the works of pop experimentalists from the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Godley & Creme, XTC, and Todd Rundgren. Peter Brewis said the title Open Here was "kind of a joke" revolving around the idea of the album as a packaged consumer commodity, since pre-packaged products often have the phrase "open here" on them.
Musical style and composition
Open Here combines elements of alternative rock and chamber pop in the usual style of Field Music, which includes complicated chords, complex instrumentation, powerful drumming, and idiosyncratic but emotional lyrics. The album also includes the type of 1980s-style pop flourishes the band utilised in Commontime, further enhanced by arrangements featuring flutes, string instruments, and horns. Although Field Music has included these instruments in past works, they were used to a much larger extent in Open Here than in previous albums. Between work on Commontime and Open Here, Field Music collaborated with the band Warm Digits and the Northern Symphonia to make the soundtrack for the film Asunder as part of the 14–18 NOW series of events to commemorate the centenary of World War I. Peter Brewis said that working with the full orchestra on that project gave Field Music more confidence in expanding the range of instruments in their own arrangements, inspiring them to use more wind instruments in addition to their usual string quartet. He said the band sought to create an album that was concise and coherent, but also going in multiple musical directions at the same time.
Open Here has been described as a work of multiple genres, including indie rock, progressive pop, and art rock. Peter Brewis said Field Music wanted Open Here to be "a varied but coherent album as a whole", and that they tried to create a unique instrumental combination for each song. For example, "Time in Joy" predominantly features a flute and guitar, "Count It Up" uses a keyboard and drum machine, and "No King No Princess" utilizes guitars and brass instruments. The final song, "Find a Way to Keep Me", includes all of the instruments featured throughout the album, so that it would, according to Peter, "be the link between all these songs". Peter said that when working on the songs, he would make recordings of instrumental ideas, and separately take notes for possible lyrics, before combining the two later.
The opening track "Time in Joy" begins with breath-like rhythms, with minimal piano and synthesizer elements, which gradually build into an erratic funk-like groove with circular staccato flute parts, a buoyant bassline, and clattering triangles and bells, becoming what Michael Rancic of Uproxx describes as a "colourful, weightless melody" with string instruments supporting the vocal lines. The Independent music critic Andy Gill said "Time in Joy" sets the general tone for the entirety of Open Here, and called the song "a frothy, blissed-out ode to companionship wrapped in cascading flutes". Kelsey J. Waite of The A.V. Club said "Time in Joy" and "Count It Up", in particular, illustrate the influences of 1980s synth-pop on Field Music and Open Here.
The composition of "Count It Up" began when David Brewis played a riff on his son's toy keyboard while his son shouted numbers in the background. The toy keyboard was used to record portions of the song, which Peter Brewis said "is probably why musically it sounds a bit silly, really". David's son did not like when other people used his keyboard, so they had to do it without his knowledge. "Count It Up" makes prominent use of drum machines, synthesizers, and keyboards, in a funk-like style, with a loose conversational vocal delivery typical of David Brewis's singing. "Count It Up" was one of the first songs Field Music has done that has no guitars at all. "Share a Pillow" utilizes loud fast-paced horn sections, driven by a blustering baritone saxophone, which plays between vocal parts layered with harmonies. Peter Brewis said the song's drumbeat was inspired by the one from the Billy Joel song "Uptown Girl".
"No King No Princess" features scratchy guitar riffs and jagged drum loops, with loud and vibrant blasts from horn instruments, and vocals by Liz Corney from the band The Cornshed Sisters. Despite the wide array of instruments featured in Open Here, the guitar is still prevalent in many songs. "Goodbye to the Country" includes what Steven Johnson of musicOMH described as "wiggly, elastic guitar lines", and The Irish News writer Dean Van Nguyen said "Checking on a Message" showcases Field Music's "ability to wrangle a swinging rhythm from a guitar". "Cameraman", meanwhile, makes greater use of string quartets, with deep sustained notes from the stringed instruments, as well as a sparse piano chord, complementing what Nguyen described as "George of the Jungle-style drums".
Songs like "Open Here", "Daylight Saving", and "Find a Way To Keep Me" include some of the album's most prominent uses of string instruments. The title track is primarily guided by violins, with the string quartet playing in a minuet style. The arrangement was partially inspired by a string quartet Peter Brewis heard during a performance of Kate Bush's song "Cloudbusting", during a celebration of Bush's music organised by Emma Pollock. John Murphy of musicOMH called "Open Here" "a gorgeously atmospheric number, starting with some Eleanor Rigby-style strings before developing into a masterful orchestral pop song". The song "Daylight Saving" includes pizzicato-style strings coupled with soft rock grooves and powerful drumming, before concluding with a sustained major chord. The album closes with "Find a Way to Keep Me", which is built around a delicate piano melody and gradually adds a string section, trumpets, flutes, and a vocal choir, all of which build to a boisterous crescendo of strings and harmonies. Paul Brown of Drowned in Sound called it a "staggeringly beautiful slow-burner", while Anna Alger of Exclaim! said it "provides a larger-than-life closer to the album, with a euphoria to it". Memphis Industries described the song as "the grandest music the brothers have ever made".
Lyrics and themes Brexit and social privilege
According to the album's official description by label Memphis Industries, Open Here is in part about the erosion of faith in people, institutions, and shared experiences in response to events from the past two years before the album's release. Open Here is more overtly political in its themes than any of Field Music's previous albums, with many of the songs directly addressing David and Peter Brewis' frustration with the result of the Brexit referendum vote. They are from Sunderland, the first district to declare its support for Brexit, much to the anger and disappointment of the Brewis brothers. Peter Brewis has said, of the two brothers, David felt the most strongly about Brexit during the making of the album; David got "incredibly angry" about Brexit, whereas Peter himself got "a little bit sad". However, both brothers took notes about Brexit throughout the referendum process, and after reviewing them, decided to write songs about the subject because Peter said "we couldn't ignore what was happening".
The lyrics of the song "Checking on a Message" depict staying up late to follow the news of political events – including the Brexit referendum results and the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump – then awaking the next morning in disbelief to messages describing the result and after-effects; the line "hoping that it isn't true" is repeated throughout. Peter Brewis said the song was about overconfidence that world events will go the expected way, and the subsequent disappointment when they do not. The song was inspired by his own experience following election results, saying: "I went to bed thinking, 'Yeah, it's going to be fine, of course it's going to be fine,' and then it wasn't. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe the messages I was getting and I thought to myself that it was me being stupid, and that's the problem." Memphis Industries wrote that the song "could be on the apocalyptic party playlist the morning after any number of recent voting catastrophes". The lyrics of the song "Cameraman" depict an attempt to document troubling times, as well as observing comfortable urban life from an outside perspective. Peter Brewis said of the song: "It's about examining this slightly Utopian world that we get to live in from a position of someone who doesn't have that privilege. To them, all this must seem like another planet, a mad dream." The song "Front of House" is about saying goodbye to a deceased friend, while the title track "Open Here" is about a group of old friends who were once in a position of local prominence, but are no longer.