Artist Watch: Field Report
FEATURING FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, PLAYERS, COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC OUTSIDE OF THE LICENSE LAB CATALOG
Release Title: Brake Light Red Tide
Genres: Indie-Folk, Folk, Singer/Songwriter
Quick Description: Lyrically driven Indie-Folk with a balance of polished production and intimate moments, full of reflective narratives, melancholy, and hope.
For Fans of: Elliott Smith, Bright Eyes, The Lone Bellow, Nathaniel Rateliff
An all-too-familiar sight… the seemingly endless line of restless automobiles. You’re brought to a full stop, surrounded by countless others caught in the same net. Welcome to Brake Light Red Tide, the fourth studio record from Field Report. It’s an appropriate metaphor as the band divests from the traditional path… one full of resistance, false-starts, and artificial stops.
Nobody set out to make a record. Songs were written and recorded until the work said it was done. Regarding the process, front man and songwriter of Field Report, Christopher Porterfield says, “We weren’t working toward a specific goal or deadline. We weren’t trying to make anyone happy. We weren’t trying to shoehorn a song or vibe into an album that asks for it. We made ships in bottles, one at a time. Until that one was done. A few bottles broke. But when I took stock of these things, I realized we had a pile of them. And while we made them as worlds unto themselves, it became clear that they were of a piece, of a moment. I didn’t think we were making a record, but we did.”
The result is a body of work that fills the time capsule of an unsettled season. The songs on Brake Light Red Tide are filled with geographic signposts and familiar images of the modern technological world, highways, and rivers. Throughout the album, there is an overarching narrative and central questions that yearn to be answered: Who am I to me? Who am I to others? Where is this going? Can I be loved?
The album’s sonic identity is that of a band who has expanded its parameters. Throughout the journey, you’ll hear the haunting and familiar tones of pedal steel and guitar, new voices ranging from Steely Dan-inspired saxophone to complementary female vocals that share the story, and rich sound design, programming and sequences, all centered around the songwriting. “This collection feels to me like the strongest thing I’ve done,” says Porterfield. “The writing is leaner, the production is consonant with the narrative, the arrangements are slightly left of center. But the restlessness in spirit, the looking for love and grappling of worthiness thereof, the old ghosts, the honest struggle and glimmer of hope - the stories I traffic in that makes Field Report your thing or very much not your thing - it’s in this collection in ways I’ve been aiming at all along.”
As with all Field Report records, there is a raw vulnerability that resonates with audiences. No matter the struggle, the songs are chronicled with a grace and openness that gives listeners a certain sense of solidarity, an understanding that they aren’t alone. We’re sitting in the red tide of brake lights together.