It’s a thing of few choruses and much abstraction, structures meandering and alpine, a confusion of sustained brass notes and drawn-out intros. At times there is breath-snatching pomp. Others it’s like watching The Thin Red Line in slow-motion.
It’s really, really beautiful – beauty as it should be in music: something precious, elusive and exotic, or indeterminate, a little sad and more than a little elegant.
This perfectionism, present in the sonics and in the complex arrangements, makes Field of Reeds the most challenging title in their catalog and also the most groundbreaking.
The music on Field Of Reeds is certainly not easily accessible but, at its heart, this is a supremely evocative album.
The spareness and sense of space on Field of Reeds is remarkable, the kind that'll make you glance over your shoulder as beguiling mercury-slicked glows slip into an overwhelming, sometimes vicious sense of anxiety
Field of Reeds may initially come across as inhumanely taut, straining, and indistinct to begin with, but this is the sound of precociousness finally arriving at a purpose.
While it isn’t pretty, cute, comfortable or enlightening music, Field of Reeds is important, resonant, serious and very very clever.
It's an exceptional case, where its makers hit the jackpot, where imagination runs riot and gets away with every daring feat, each one more foolish than the previous.
Pinned up and thoroughly artistic, Field of Reeds is affecting, but it’s also hard to get genuinely excited about.
Field of Reeds is an altogether quieter, more reflective record than Hidden, and in some respects feels like a step sideways as compared to the huge leap forward they took last time round.
Listening to Field of Reeds sometimes feels like taking a test and forgetting everything you thought you studied for. At the same token, its gorgeous production, control, and vision make it hard to turn away from.
Devoid of easy access points, it’s sparser and stranger, filled with eerie lulls and sudden, discombobulating rushes of noise. Anyone hankering for a visceral body-and-mind-fuck á la ‘Hidden: Part 2’ is going to feel alienated.
“You asked if the islands would float away
If the stars run through me
Like a river, like the air
I said, ‘Yes’”
Wow have I been swallowed whole by this one in the past two days! The Barnetts’ songs are so meticulous in their construction - immaculate even - but it’s all in service of a loose fluidity that makes the music feel almost elusive. Many albums desperately beg or demand your attention, but Field of Reeds patiently but assuredly waits with arms ... read more
Checked this out because Oliver named it his AOTD and yeah it's spectacular! It's an eerie slow-burner that might test your patience on first listen but is well worth the effort. I'm loving the unsettling atmosphere that this album drenches you in from front to back.
Hello, I'm Oliver and this is deep cuts a channel dedicated to music for lovers of music and Happy 10 Year anniversary to These New Puritans ''Field Of Reeds''.
This album has amazing production with these deep sounds that are fantastic. This album takes you on a beautiful journey to relax and float off to. Fragment Two has a bit of a generic ism to it but besides that this is a near flawless album.
1 | This Guy's in Love With You 3:03 | 93 |
2 | Fragment Two 4:34 | 95 |
3 | The Light in Your Name 6:03 | 96 |
4 | V (Island Song) 9:16 | 98 |
5 | Spiral 6:04 | 96 |
6 | Organ Eternal 5:32 | 98 |
7 | Nothing Else 7:49 | 95 |
8 | Dream 4:15 | 93 |
9 | Field of Reeds 6:29 | 96 |
#2 | / | The Quietus |
#4 | / | Crack Magazine |
#6 | / | Bleep |
#8 | / | Drowned in Sound |
#18 | / | The Guardian |
#18 | / | The Wire |
#28 | / | NME |
#29 | / | FACT Magazine |
#32 | / | Uncut |
#33 | / | musicOMH |