Field Works - Maples, Ash, and Oaks: Cedars Instrumentals - not just Cedars with the vocals removed; a shining example of the New Age of New Age
Maples, Ash, and Oaks: Cedars Instrumentals is a mesmerizing soundtrack for a long walk in the woods, made up of pedal steel, oud, guitar, hurdy-gurdy, and piano. Based on the original Field Works album Cedars, this new suite of instrumental music brings the listener even deeper into the forest. For this special limited-edition release, Stuart Hyatt deconstructed each track from Cedars and rebuilt them one layer at a time. He removed the narrators’ voices and invited Julien Marchal to introduce piano as the new protagonist. The 15 new tracks are named from each line of the new poem, Deciduous, by Cecily Parks. The musical frameworks are based on the Field Works album Cedars, created by Marisa Anderson, Fadi Tabbal, and Stuart Hyatt – and performed by Julien Marchal, Youmna Saba, Dena El Saffar, Danny Paul Grody, Bob Hoffnar, Stuart Hyatt, Tomás Lozano, Nathan Bowles, Alex Roldan, Fadi Tabbal, and Marisa Anderson. The forest soundscape was recorded by Harrison Ridley in the Welsh countryside.
Less Than a Balm But More Than Enough: Justin Cober-Lake’s 2020
Field Works capturing the echolocations of bats
Ultrasonic by Field Works
A few years ago, I made the case that all years in music are equally good, and it's just a matter of how lucky or diligent you are in your explorations in a given year. I still think that idea's true, but this year's context has added another component to my thinking. For a variety of personal and professional reasons (just think “2020” for a statement like that), I've had more listening time than usual this year, so if diligence and luck make for good listening years, that would put me in a good place. And – as a fan and a writer – I have been in one. As always, I've kept a running list throughout the year of records to keep in mind for November and December's polls. This year the list might be the longest it's ever been.
I suspect it's not just that I've listened more. It's also not that I've written more, which lends itself to more detailed appreciation of more music. The year itself has offered its own new listening context. There's a practical element. As life slowed down, there was less half-listening while trying not to be late for soccer practice. It was easier to be immersed.
Perfectly Imperfect At The Ryman by Margo Price
But it's not just the practical side. This year it was more necessary to be immersed. As the world fell apart (with the US offering its own special version of disaster), music could be both a refuge and a commentary. By the end of the year I was tired of reading or even writing about the way that a given album either responded to the times or helped us out by ostensibly ignoring them. Some of the best music had nothing to do with the pandemic or the protests or the election; some of it did. Some of it began with beautiful meditations on nature or landscape; some of it used volume and unruliness to get where it needed to go.
Sand Like Stardust by Jordan Reyes
So with both more time and more reason to listen, I found an abundance of great music in 2020. For that matter, I simply found abundance. Favorite acts put out multiple albums. Deerhoof, the Mountain Goats, and the Drive-By Truckers all outdid themselves. Margo Price released one of the best album's of the year, but it might not have been as good as her surprise live release on Bandcamp. Daniel Romano’s Outfit (a newly discovered joy) put out so much music that I lost track.
To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough by Deerhoof
Other artists – both relatively new and relatively not – stuck to a more sensible one-album-per-year limit, but made the most of it. Bob Dylan came out of his neverending whatever to make one of the most stunning albums of his career. Lucinda Williams found a way to harness anger for one of her best. Old 97’s turned album number twelve into one of their finest, with Rhett Miller blending his rock and pop sensibilities as well as he ever has. Plenty of artists at the other end of their discography made great contributions, too, including Jordan Reyes, Eli Winter, and the War and Treaty. Field Works even brought in bats for Ultrasonic, the year's best release.
Okay Wow by Daniel Romano
It would be too easy (and not much of a read) to just start rambling about all the great music that came out of 2020. I haven't even touched on jazz or experimental or even harder edged music. If I think about my list of my top 30 albums, it seems to be missing albums I want to talk about, (and I've already said those things anyway for most of those albums). We're wrapping up a year that – at least collectively – was the worst that most of us have lived through. That some of us managed to find a deluge of incredible music offers little solace these days. Even so, spending time with so much offers more than a balm and a much needed relief in a largely bleak year. It's been its own distinct joy. If there's more than enough to go around, then so much the better.
A double LP of ambient soundscapes using the echolocations of the endangered Indiana bat as source material? Hell yes — why not? This year is already weird enough, let’s make it weirder (in a good way). Field Works is an ongoing project from Stuart Hyatt (you can read more about him in this excellent recent New York Times article) and for Ultrasonic, he’s gathered together an all-star cast — Mary Lattimore, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Noveller and Sarah Davachi among them. They all essentially duet with the strange chirps and whirs of bats, sometimes creating soothing sonic landscapes, sometimes finding high drama within these natural reverberations. From Dusk to Dawn, it all hangs together perfectly ...
