Dronæment, Fieldbox (3 CDR Fieldmuzick)

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Packed in a snazzy metal box with stuffed with goodies, in an edition of a mere fifty copies, comes this triple CDR set by Dronæment, the ongoing field music/electronica project of Marcus Obst.

"Fields 1" has been released before under a triple billing with Andrea Marutti and Aidan Baker. It begins with a ”field map” (both opening and closing "field maps" feature sounds contributed by Marutti and Baker) which jauntily surveys the terrain before abandoning all rhythm for a quirkily airborne view.

The sound of rushing water is zoomed in on next, and we find ourselves in apparently lush surroundings populated with a large variety of species, some real, some electronically generated. A steady, very basic rhythm returns to guide those electronic birds further on their journey, soaring and zinging through the air, very reminiscent of the cosmic electronica of the 1970s.

”…Is So Quiet” is really not so, it is rubbery and repetitive and irresistable, a kind of naturalist´s dubstep. ”Anduasende” sounds like someone has opened a factory in the jungle. But as the disc rounds off with a second ”field map” and the drums return, it would seem the jungle growth has overtaken the machinery and wild order and harmony have been restored.

Whereas the first disc was ostensibly divided into eight tracks (which regardless flowed smoothly into one another), ”Fields 2” boasts three long tracks, each longer than the one before – approximately eleven, eighteen and twenty-five minutes, respectively. Although the first, untitled track begins rather haphazardly, we are without a doubt outside, the air fairly throbbing with human and avian activity.

The second must have been recorded in the morning, in some small village, I would like to think. The birds are indeed active, but the rest of the world seems just to be waking up. We may we be following the milkman on his morning rounds. The odd chime of a church bell would suggest a Sunday. Eventually a lovely drone, some seraphic choir, rises to the fore and is joined by the church organ.

The third track shatters this tranquility with what sounds like a motor starting and waking up all the owls in the neighbourhood from their daytime slumber. And they are not happy about it. The rumble turns into a sustained high-pitched drone, again very organ like, but with the rattling of mechanical cicadas giving it an edge.

Curiously, the final disc, "Fields Bonus", said to contain among other things raw mixes of some of what we´ve heard before, is the most cohesive and distinctive of the discs. Obst sets off a cheap beat machine and shapes the air around it, experimenting with timbre.

Combining field recordings with slow, simple percussion conjures a unique but natural habitat where man, flora, fauna, consumer society and heavy machinery, playgrounds and killing fields, all seem equally integrated and at home.

Obst characterizes the entire collection as a sort of melding of the little world he inhabits and the big world outside his door into some kind of fantasy realm. Which does not seem far-fetched. Obst glories in sound-as-world and as refuge-from-world at the same time, juxtaposing unexpected aural fields, bemused by the results. But a backstory is quite unnecessary to the pleasures of this generous and optimistic collection.

The elaborate metal boxed set is due to come out in an economy-sized, two CD edition in the near future.

http://www.fieldmuzick.net