Yesterday and Today (Bonus Track Version)

iTunes Review

Much like his sleek record sleeves, Axel Willner's trance-inducing tracks are deceptively simple. In fact, you might have a hard time telling the Field's second full-length album apart from his last, 2007's buzz-building From Here We Go Sublime LP —at least at first, as Willner's steam-pressed synths, steady bass lines, and skittish samples wash over you like a bucket of water in slow motion. Take some time actually absorbing the scope of his hour-long opus, though, and the big picture emerges — an ever-evolving place where Krautrock keys collide with dabs of Detroit techno ("Sequenced"), and Battles drummer John Stanier (a former member of Helmet and Mike Patton's Tomahawk project) rigs his avant-rock rhythms up to Willner's woozy disco loops (the title track). And then there's "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime," the Field's first attempt at a chill-out anthem/love song, complete with melancholic "I need your loving" melodies. Whether this means Willner has a singer-songwriter album in him or not doesn't really matter; what matters is how his Field work is as blissful as it's ever been.