Last week, we lingered in Europe to hand off Almost Famous kudos to dynamic Norwegian rocker Ida Maria, who recently signed a lucrative deal with Mercury Records in the States. This week, we return to Almost Famous UK in which we serve up a hearty spag bol with an Oddbins-cheap Cabernet to those British artists and bands who we believe deserve to be as buzzed about in the States as they are in dear old Blighty.
Sunderland, England’s David and Peter Brewis might be best known for their band Field Music which, as smartly realized on their second, critically-acclaimed 2007 album Tones of the Town, excels at gorgeously unorthodox pop. But the Brewis siblings (the third Field Music member is keyboardist Andrew Moore) weren’t content to ride comfortably on a wave of indie-cool success. They turned down a high profile Snow Patrol tour and put Field Music on hiatus to focus on individual projects, born of disparate passions. While David recorded as School of Language, dropping his robust debut Sea From Shore in 2008, Peter took a much different path as The Week That Was, releasing what may–or may not–be a one-off, self-titled album. Peter and his band, which in studio consisted of Field Music’s David Brewis and Moore plus nine other musicians, is currently on a North American mini-tour, arriving in Chicago on March 7th and New York on March 9th. Gigs in Montreal, Toronto and Cleveland follow, culminating with a SXSW gig in Austin on March 18th.
Despite the band’s suspiciously Field Music-centric lineage, The Week That Was, which dropped last August, is wholly Peter’s vision: a spirited, blissfully eccentric and defiantly orchestral fantasy, swollen with flourishes of early, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Pink Floyd, Kate Bush and The Colour of Spring meets Spirit of Eden-era Talk Talk.
“I remember feeling that it was something I had to do,” Peter Brewis told Uncensored Interview via email. “The fact that it wasn’t a band meant I could try different things. I asked certain people to play and contribute but it was never meant to be a band. I wasn’t even thinking about playing it live.” Though Brewis admits he was nervous at the outset, he felt a certain freedom in doing what he pleased. A multi-hued palette of production and sonic sorcery runs pell-mell throughout The Week That Was. Most striking is the particularly bold percussive line that snakes its way through all eight tracks, from the jittery pulse of “Learn to Learn” to the declarative vamp of the Gabriel-like “Scratch The Surface” and the melancholy gallop of “The Airport Line.” Not surprising, since Brewis was the original drummer for fellow Sunderland rockers, The Futureheads. For this record, he deliberately chose to honor the early 80s forays into experimental Linn Drum and Fairlight sounds. “During the recording I didn’t have to answer to anyone,” Brewis explains, “which meant I could use all of the ideas and technologies available without having to take anything away from anyone. For instance, I had no drummer to upset with drum machines.”
Though Brewis says that he’s had ideas for The Week That Was that were scribbled on notepads and saved on Dictaphones “for ages,” he wrote the album in just over a week. “It wasn’t a perfect week,” he confesses. “I remember feeling a bit distressed.” Inspired by the uneasy mood defining Brooklyn author Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy, an ambiguous, noir murder mystery, Brewis created an angular, tenebrous album that skitters down dark alleyways, yet takes sunnier turns down brighter boulevards with majestic string arrangements and Brewis’ soaring melodies.
While The Week That Was is playing SXSW–a third return for Brewis since he’s been to Austin twice before with Field Music–it’s not necessarily an event that Brewis or his brother have enjoyed, feeling that the festival is a bit too overrun with “bands and people trying to hit the big time.”
“It got me it got me thinking about why I make music in the first place,” says Brewis. “Am I really in this awful rat race to create demand for myself? We’ll play but I’m not chasing any grand prize, there isn’t one so far as I can see.” That said, Brewis does have an Austin survival plan set. “Have a good breakfast and don’t try and see too many bands. Get a few frozen margies away from the rock n roll strip and enjoy Austin. It’s really nice.”
The future of The Week That Was, which borrows part of its moniker from the David Frost-hosted, 1960s British television satire “ That Was The Week That Was,” seems to go, well, from week to week. The band has gigs slated in the UK for April and May, including the Wood Festival in Oxfordshire on May 15th. But Brewis says that he spent last week recording “half a new song” for a possible new Field Music record and believes that for him, his brother David and Moore, that album is a top priority.
“We’ve had our freedom for a bit and I think we’re ready to try to do something together again,” says Peter. “I want us to make a record that isn’t as concise and measured as previous Field Music records. I want to make a big sprawling mess of a record.”
The Week That Was tours North America March 7-18th and plays New York’s Mercury Lounge on March 9th and Friends Bar in Austin on March 18th.
TOPICS: Almost Famous, HeinzOnHovis