FIELD MUSIC share new single ‘Beyond That of Courtesy’ – Listen Now

FIELD MUSIC share new single 'Beyond That of Courtesy' - Listen Now

Field Music share “Beyond That of Courtesy”, the new single taken from the forthcoming new album Making A New World, a 19 track song cycle about the after-effects of the First World War. Released through Memphis Industries on 10th January 2020, the album grew from a project the band undertook for the Imperial War Museum and was first performed at their sites in Salford and London earlier this year. But it is not an album about war and it is not, in any traditional sense, an album about remembrance.

“Beyond That of Courtesy” references the Inter-Allied Women’s Conference organised by the French Women’s Suffrage Societies post the First World War. The conference was designed to promote women’s political participation at both national and international levels. Fast forward to 1960, and Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected prime minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). She is the world’s first elected female head of government. Nineteen years later Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female elected head of government in Europe. Progress, but at a cost.

The starting point was a document from the IWM collection; an image, from a 1919 publication on munitions by the US War Department, made using “sound ranging”, a technique that utilised an array of transducers to capture the vibrations of gunfire at the front. These vibrations were displayed on a graph, similar to a seismograph, where the distances between peaks on different lines could be used to pinpoint the location of enemy armaments. This particular image showed the minute leading up to 11 am on 11th November 1918, and the minute immediately after. One minute of oppressive, juddering noise and one minute of near-silence.

Listen to ‘Beyond That of Courtesy’ – BELOW:

There are songs here about air traffic control and gender reassignment surgery. There are songs about Tiananmen Square and about ultrasound, about Becontree Housing Estate and about sanitary towels.

And the songs are in a kind of chronological order, starting with the end of the war itself; the uncertainty of heading home in a profoundly altered world ( “Coffee or Wine”). Later we hear a song about the work of Dr Harold Gillies (the shimmering ballad, “A Change of Heir”), whose pioneering work on skin grafts for injured servicemen led him, in the 1940s, to perform some of the very first gender reassignment surgeries. We see how the horrors of the war led to the Dada movement and how that artistic reaction was echoed in the extreme performance art of the 60s and 70s (the mathematical head-spin of “A Shot To The Arm”). And then in the funk stomp of “Money Is A Memory”, we picture an office worker in the German Treasury preparing documents for the final instalment on reparation debts – a payment made in 2010, 91 years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. A defining, blood-spattered element of 20th-century history becomes a humdrum administrative task in a 21st-century bureaucracy.

This is Field Music’s first true concept album. It’s also their first record, at least since 2007’s Tones of Town, which really is a “band” album. While most of Field Music’s output has been pieced together primarily by brothers Peter and David Brewis, with a supporting cast dropping in to add finishing touches, the basic tracks for Making A New World were recorded in two full run-throughs by the Field Music live band – Liz Corney on keyboards, Kevin Dosdale on guitar and Andrew Lowther on bass, with Peter and David on guitar and drums respectively – in a single day, following the final performance at IWM London.

Field Music will be performing Making a New World in its entirety, with each song accompanied by visuals created by the band’s Kevin Dosdale. There will also be a bonus set of classics from the Field Music oeuvre.

FIELD MUSIC UK TOURDATES

31 Jan – Kendal, Brewery Arts Centre
01 Feb – Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery
21 Feb – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
22 Feb – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
27 Feb – Whitley Bay, Playhouse
28 Feb – Manchester, Dancehouse
29 Feb – London, EartH

Tickets available from www.field-music.co.uk/live

In addition, Field Music will be heading out to play in association with some of the UK’s finest record shops:

09 Jan – Liverpool, Phase One instore
10 Jan – Manchester, Piccadilly Records outstore at Soup Kitchen
11 Jan – Edinburgh, outstore at The Mash House
15 Jan – London, Rough Trade East instore
16 Jan – Bristol, Rough Trade Bristol instore
17 Jan – Brighton, Resident Music instore
19 Jan – Newcastle, Reflex outstore at The Cluny

Making a New World will be available to pre-order on gatefold limited edition transparent red vinyl, CD and digital. Head HERE for all options.

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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