Maples, Ash, And Oaks: Cedars Instrumentals＜限定盤＞

さらに森の深淵へ誘うアレンジになって再登場!

フィールドレコーディングとポストクラシカルのセットで作品を積み上げてきたFIELD WORKS。2021年3月にリリースされた最新作『CEDARS』が、もっとフンワリと輪郭をぼやかしCECILY PARKSの詩を引用してリアレンジした『MAPLES, ASH, AND OAKS: CEDARS INSTRUMENTALS』となって突如ドロップ!!

トレードマークのフィールドレコーディングサウンドがあくまでSE的なポジションに周り、ピアノやペダルスティールが大活躍!タイトルには詩人で大学で教鞭をとるCECILY PARKSの作品から引用。インスト作品に対して言葉から深みを持たせるアプローチが、挑戦的で本作をもっと表所豊かなモノにしています!

トラック自体を1音ずつ再構築し森の中を散歩しながら深い場所まで辿り着く雰囲気を目指した、FIELD WORKSのNEW AGEな方向性を是非チェック!

Field Works album Cedars was a song cycle about forests and humanitys relationship with nature, featuring poetry in Arabic and English over organic compositions played on instruments such as pedal steel, oud, and hurdy-gurdy. Maples, Ash, and Oaks is Cedars instrumental companion, but it isnt merely the same album with the vocals removed. Instead, the tracks are rebuilt, with Julien Marchal contributing piano to a gentle layer of birdsong calling in the background, recorded by Harrison Ridley in the Welsh countryside. On this release, the song titles are all in English, and the track listing is arranged to form a poem about the fleeting nature of the experience of walking through a forest. To Meet the Company is representative of the albums space-country sound, with softly spiraling pianos and layers of steel guitar which seem like the aural equivalent of distant mountains in the background of a landscape. We Know the Moss, Forget-Me-Nots shifts into a colder mood, with strings that create a feeling of tension and eerie reversed guitar effects. But We Want to Be Known is similarly much too dark and dusky to be considered new age, but things brighten up during calm, airy selections like And Blue-Green Spruce, We Listen to Maples, Ash, and Oaks, and the faintly rippling Without Saying, Forget Me Not. Pieces like Without Hearing, But Not Hearing provide moments of stillness and reflection that are actually more eventful than they might seem at first, and the piano-driven What Was That? Leaves Rustle is a bit more upfront and sentimental. While the poetic lyrics made Cedars such a unique experience, this reimagining is just as carefully realized, and succeeds in its own right. ~ Paul Simpson