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Polar Vessels

by Fields of Few

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about

Polar Vessels opens with a cool icey blast of momentum and doesn't let up for the duration of its generous run-time. This dazzling full-length effort from Fields of Few hops deftly between aural glaciers in a flurry of synthesizers and mechanistic percussion, always drawing a tap from the listener's foot and erratic bobbing of the head. You're taken through a frozen cyberpunk city soaked in lo-fi sunshine and slick frosty sheen. It's a gorgeous fusion of approaches that adds up to a spectacularly fun and supremely danceable listening experience. Get on this.

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INTERGIEW
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George Ernst: I think I might have asked this last time when I reviewed your lovely EP back in January but let's humor new listeners. Also, nautical themes are evident in the titles. A cold boat basically. Like the show The Terror, as the name 'Polar Vessels' Suggests. Where does this fascination with the chillier side of sounds come from?

Tim Gilbert (Fields of Few) I guess I’ve always been drawn to more remote parts of the world. I grew up in a relatively crowded part of the UK so maybe it’s a reaction to that in part. But I also find the rawness of the natural environment incredibly grounding, timeless, and humbling and it makes me feel very connected. It’s like the antithesis of many aspects of modern life which is often a very fast-paced, consumerist, bureaucratic, throw-away society.

GE: What's the farthest north you've ever been?

TG: I’ve actually been to a place called Svalbard which is on the edge of the arctic ice pack. I played Cello on a few cruise ships many years ago and that was one of the places we went. I did manage to spend my fee for the whole cruise in the bar along with the other musicians so it was only profitable in the spiritual sense.

GE: When do we get to hear your summer LP, with marimba and steel drums and the sound of community fish fries on a beach in Turks and Caicos?

TG: Ah I definitely have plans for this already… great minds! …(maybe not the steel drum bit though, ha!) My next album will be exploring that hazy summer evening feel.

GE: Can you talk a little about the hardware or software used in constructing this record?

TG: So I went pretty much solely electronic on this one using FL Studio, but I also used some samples I recorded using a portable Roland digital recorder- one of the sea, one of a recording of a thunder storm I made in Wiltshire in about 2012, and a recording of the coastal wind I made on a stormy day up in the Wirral near Liverpool. I like to make recordings on my travels. There’s also some percussion that I borrowed off my son, but I’ll let you see if you can spot it!

GE: Would you rather be hunted by a polar bear or the Blair Witch?

TG: Definitely a Polar bear. I like to think we’d get on OK once I’d done the horse (bear) whisperer thing. I’d share my snacks with him and everything.

GE: What's your favourite track on the album? Mine's either '66 Degrees North' or 'Snow Flurries Against a Window'. Both have this super infectious melodic line brimming with immediacy that feels like a JRPG soundtrack.

TG: It’s probably ‘66 Degress North’ too, but it’s a close run thing between that and ‘Darkened Seas’… the keys melody against the harmony works really well for me in that one.

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REVIEW
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Ice is back baby! It's good again! Awoouu (wolf Howl).

England based cellist and composer Tim Gilbert breathes new life into his intriguing Fields of Few project, following up on January's delightful little Sines & Signals EP, this time with a full length release entitled 'Polar Vessels'. Appropriately named. It's time to bring back those chilly synths and ice-cold arpeggio flurries now the weather has started to turn again.

As ever, the tunes are focused and sharp as icicles, never outstaying their welcome, yet the grooves they fall into feel as though they could linger for much longer without the loss of goodwill. Indeed, opener '66 Degrees North' immediately establishes an earworm of a melodic pattern and runs it through a series of ever-mutating variations. It's direct and to the point, and works wonders as an opener, letting you know Gilbert's senses still remain sharp after these 10 unusual months. His insatiable knack for zooming in on a crunchy electronic groove and riding it out gracefully remains.

Certainly the same can be said for the following two pieces, both of course continuing to allude to the arctic themes dominant throughout Gilbert's recent compositions. 'Empty Polar Blues' appropriately enough conducts itself with less warmth than its brawnier brothers preceding and following it but serves as an early window into the album's more introspective themes. Conversely, 'Arctic Tracker' stomps stubbornly into earshot with an immediate placement of iconic FOF beeps, set over a pounding compressed click-laden beat, feeling like a combination of the prettiness of 'Blues' and the immediacy of 'North'.

'Snow Flurries Against a Window' sounds like snow. Flurrying. Perhaps against some sort of window. Whether that's at home with a mug of hot chocolate or out in the desolate wastes with Kurt Russell and Keith David waiting for The Thing to show up remains to be seen. Indeed it rides a fine line between delicious and danceable and chill-inducing. Melancholy has never been this danceable. Meanwhile 'Night Sea Vectors' leans heavily into the joys of rich atmospheric synth pads, dancing over simple yet effective percussion.

Kicking off Side two, 'Green Screen' retains the chilly sensibilities of what came before, yet there's a definite communication of the hustle and bustle of modernity and claustrophobic civilization mirrored in the near-erratic nature of the beat and synth-bass. Punctuated with a breath-catching opportunity in the middle of the piece, wherein the synths can truly lose themselves in a blissful aural entanglement.

'The East Wind Slows' rumbles into sight and the combined titles of these tracks start to feel like some lost soundtrack to a video game adaptation of Ridley Scott's The Terror. Chiptune-ish synths duke it out against a placid and warm envelopment of synth pads to create a pleasing melodic concoction. Following is the heavenly 'Transitory State'. Less bombastic than the earlier tracks, though just as engaging. Hip-Hop percussion anchors some truly lovely instrumentation. Gilbert truly understands how to evoke powerful emotions from his synthesizers and it's a pleasure to take in. Similarly, 'Darkened Seas', the longest track on Polar Vessels brims with barely contained tension, communicated through a relentless, ever-evolving bubbling bassline and vast, Arctic sun-soaked melodies. The effect is mesmerizing and agoraphobic, and yet shockingly easy to bob your head to.

Finally, 'Alone with the Rain' brings things to a somber close (exit, pursued by the Tuunbaq). Well, not entirely somber. The melancholy of the pads feels at war with the excited tornado of synth-keys, so there's excitement in the air even as things wind down on this percussion-less finisher. Not quite ambient but too beat-less to dance to. It's an under-represented form of electronic music in the vein of early BoC and The Advisory Circle that's as refreshing as it is delightful. Of course, both adjectives can be said to do justice to the record as a whole. Despite the sub-zero themes, both in the track titles and baked into the compositions, Polar Vessels never suffers from a lack of warmth.



George Ernst
Triplicate Records

credits

released October 26, 2022

Written & Produced by Tim Gilbert
Mastered by Michael Southard
Artwork by Bryan Kraft

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Fields of Few Bath, UK

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