Field Music “You’re Not Supposed To”

I’ll stand in a white belt on Bloc Party’s coffee table and predict Field Music, solely on the strength of last year’s debut album, to emerge as the best of the second wave of dancey post-punk. Their self-titled debut instantly ingratiated itself to me on the strength of songs that weren’t overly concerned with teaching indie kids to dance again, but more with creating skittery, elegant pop gems that play with the same tension/release dialectic but without ever giving one precedence over the other. It’s as much Todd Rundgren as it is Devo, as much “Eleanor Rigby” as “Taxman”.

Now that I think about it, the first track from their forthcoming odds n’ sods comp Write Your Own History sums up their raison d’etre relatively well, lyrically and musically. “You’re Not Supposed To” (mp3) works its way toward a robotically repeated refrain of the titular phrase, but not before escorting the listener through a pastiche of sounds, from the opening Gregorian-ish-ness (which sounds, for some reason, like the opening moments of a Medieval-themed audiobook) to the robo-drums, tambourine and delicately delivered questions, a singular appearance of “Sister Golden Hair” guitar, and finally to the string and kitten-running across the piano-underscored majesty of why we came here in the first place. Which is to be challenged–which we are, with the lyrics “Can you function completely? Are you sure you’re not hiding something? Without it, can you function?”

Write Your Own History will be out in May on Memphis Industries. You can order the 7″ with this song on it 4/10, here.

(Update) A great little video for the aforementioned song, here.

Filed under: Field Music