Commontime is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Field Music. It was released by Memphis Industries on 5 February 2016. The album has been described as the band's most accessible to date, and encompasses a wide range of genres and influences, including the funk style that Field Music's David Brewis previously explored on Old Fears, an album by his side project School of Language. Commontime has a stronger pop music sound than Field Music's previous albums, in part inspired by David and Peter Brewis’ children listening to a lot of Hall & Oates and American number-one singles.
As with other Field Music works, Commontime features unique song structures, unconventional instrumentation, and unusual time signatures that occasionally shift mid-song. It also includes interweaving vocals and sophisticated harmonies, with more instances of the Brewis brothers singing together than past Field Music albums, as well as prominent use of strings and brass instruments. The album features a wider array of supporting musicians than on the band's previous works, including the band's original keyboardist Andrew Moore, Peter's wife Jennie Brewis on vocals, and backup singer Liz Corney from the band Cornshed Sisters.
Commontime was the first album released by Field Music since David and Peter Brewis became fathers, and several of its songs are about parenthood and family, as well as the shift in responsibility and priorities imposed by children. Other songs are about coming to terms with ageing and middle age, and although Commontime is less overtly political than previous Field Music albums, the Brewis brothers said the album conveys a message that experiencing joy and fun despite difficult political times is in itself an act of political defiance.
Recorded at Field Music's home studio in Sunderland, the music for Commontime was written and recorded in spontaneous bursts over six months. "The Noisy Days Are Over" is the first single from the album, followed by “Disappointed”. The musician Prince wrote about the first single on Twitter, which generated media attention for the album and band. Field Music undertook their first American tour since 2010 in support of Commontime, though the U.S. portion of the tour was shortened at the band's request due to the challenges from parenthood. The album became the first Field Music album to reach the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart. Commontime received positive reviews, with an aggregated Metacritic rating of 79/100, and appeared on a handful of year-end lists of the best albums of 2016. Several reviewers compared Commontime to the work of such artists as David Bowie, Talking Heads, XTC, Hot Chip, and Peter Gabriel.
Background
Commontime was the fifth studio album by Field Music, the English rock band consisting of the brothers David and Peter Brewis. Released through its label Memphis Industries, it was the band's first album since Music for Drifters (2015), a soundtrack Field Music recorded for the 1929 silent film Drifters, and the band's first traditional studio album since the release of Plumb in 2012. During the four years between Plumb and Commontime, David and Peter Brewis released or participated in a number of solo works and collaborations: David released a 2014 album called Old Fears through his side project School of Language, and Peter Brewis collaborated with Paul Smith of the band Maxïmo Park on the album Frozen by Sight (2014). Additionally, Field Music released an album of covers in 2012 called Field Music Play..., and worked with the band Slug on their 2015 album Ripe.
David said of the hiatus: "As much fun as we might have had on our own or collaborating, we missed just spending time in the studio, the two of us, trying things out together." Commontime featured a wider array of supporting musicians than past Field Music albums, including the band's original keyboardist Andrew Moore, Peter's wife Jennie Brewis on vocals, and backup singer Liz Corney, from the band Cornshed Sisters. The album title Commontime refers to the common time signature referred to by musicians as "common time", and was intended as a joke by Field Music in reference to their reputation for using various types of time signatures in their songs.
Musical style and composition Pop, funk, other genre influences
Commontime has been described as Field Music's most accessible album to date, to which David Brewis responded: "I am okay with the word 'accessible'". The album's songs encompass a wide range of genres and influences; as Larry Bartleet of NME wrote: "There are references to just about every genre you can think of here, from funk and R&B to classical and glam rock, all bound together with the Brewis’ usual wiry textures." David described Commontime as "a distillation of all of the elements that make up Field Music". The album has been described as art rock, art pop, indie pop, chamber pop, and sophisti-pop. It features progressive rock elements, similar to those of Field Music's previous album Plumb, though Under the Radar writer Cody Ray Shafer argued Commontime was a "much more focused effort, more consistent and straightforward" than Plumb, with "a more precise emphasis on sticking to one idea at a time".
Commontime also had a stronger pop music sound than previous Field Music albums. Peter Brewis said: "We really do love pop music and that love of pop is still there" on Commontime, though he argued Field Music approached pop "maybe in a slightly different way" than other bands. Despite the greater emphasis on pop in Commontime, Edgardo Rodríguez of No Ripcord argued that the band had "been hinting at this direction" since as early as its 2007 album Tones of Town. Pitchfork writer T. Cole Rachel described Commontime as "splitting the difference" between the "artful leanings" of Field Music's Measure (2010) and the "more conventional post-punk pop immediacy" of the band's 2005 self-titled debut album.
Several tracks on Commontime were similar in style to those from the School of Language album Old Fears, which David Brewis described as "wiry pop funk". David said this similarity was deliberate: "It all feeds into this linear – if not a straight line – vision of what we are doing. ... There is no way I could blank all of that stuff out, because what I was doing on the School of Language record was exactly the music I wanted to make at the time." Several music writers noted the funk influence on Commontime, with Pat Levy of Consequence of Sound calling it "funky and poppy", The Independent writer Kevin Harley noting its "snappy funk grooves", and John Freeman of The Quietus describing it as "intricate prog-funk" with a "a pop sensibility". Several writers particularly compared it to the funk style of Talking Heads. Harley wrote that Field Music often kept the funk influence modest and economical, resulting in a "tight, frugal funk". Mac Randall of The New York Observer argued Commontimes "non-funky tracks" were less overtly complex than much of Field Music's earlier work, particularly Plumb, which Randall said "consisted in large part of fragments within fragments, changing mood and tempo with alarming frequency".
The most funk-inspired tracks on Commontime, like "Disappointed", "Same Name", "Don't You Want to Know What's Wrong?", were composed by David and feature him on vocals most prominently. These songs reflected a difference in composition style between the two brothers; David noted that Peter's songs tend to have a greater emphasis on "conceptual frameworks", while his own songs were more focused upon "one thing through the whole track", which he attributed in part to his appreciation for the artist Prince. As an example of this style, "Same Name" features David's falsetto vocals with a funky guitar riff and low-key drumming, as well as small flourishes of synthesisers. Levy called it "a simplistic formula that yields fun results", adding: "For a nearly six-minute song where not much happens, the arrangement still makes it one of the album highlights." "Don't You Want to Know What's Wrong?" features an energetic bassline, grooving guitar, slow staccato drums, and what Rodríguez described as a "Philly soul-inspired bounce".
Hall & Oates, American number-one singles
The greater accessibility and shift toward pop music in Commontime was partially inspired by Peter Brewis' young son's love of American number-one singles and, in particular, the music of Hall & Oates. Peter Brewis said: "We prepared for Commontime by listening to the music that our kids wanted to listen to." David and Peter had been fans of Hall & Oates since their childhoods, and when Peter's son's became interested in the band, they listened to the music often and had discussions with each other over it. David said they began "obsessing" over strength of Hall & Oates' backing vocals, and believed they could achieve a similar result on Commontime. Field Music had long featured upfront backing vocals on its albums, which David said was probably partially inspired by Hall & Oates. The band inspired Field Music on Commontime to have "a sense of letting rip a little bit with the lead vocals, which we’re generally too English and embarrassed to do".
In addition to Hall & Oates, Peter said Commontime was influenced by his son's interest in The Beatles, David Bowie, Prince, and Paul Simon, particularly the album Graceland. David Brewis said in the past he had not written songs so directly influenced by specific types of music, but with Commontime he attempted to do so because he wanted to try something different, and because of the sheer number of pop songs he was listening to at the time. He said on Commontime, the band "turned down the inhibitions for this record and all the weird rules that we have were relaxed a bit. ... There was a definitely a sense of wanting to have some fun." In the past, David said the band tried to avoid repeating elements in songs, but with the new record, he described a "conscious desire to embrace proper songs ... the kind that's three and a half minutes with a chorus that repeats three times". Peter Brewis said listening to these pop songs over and over because of his son led him to pick out different elements of the songs that he had not noticed upon earlier listens. This inspired him to incorporate more repetitious elements into his Commontime compositions than on previous albums, about which he said: "I like the idea of being repetitious without being formulaic." David added that, as a result of listening to so many pop songs, "this time the chorus was at the center of our concerns, whereas in recent years we have been inclined to favour stair structures, even labyrinths". He cited "Disappointed" as an example of this increased focus on choruses, saying: "We were consciously embracing the simplicity and directness of the pop music we love, where most of the song is in the chorus and the singing is always right at the front."
Unusual time signatures, vocal harmonies