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Field Music announce new album, Making A New World

By | Published on Thursday 19 September 2019

Field Music

Field Music have announced that they will release new album, ‘Making A New World’, in January. At its core a concept album about the after effects of the First World War, it takes some turns you might not expect – for example on new single ‘Only In A Man’s World’, which is about sanitary towels.

“I found myself researching the development of sanitary pads – not a statement I’ve ever imagined myself making – and was surprised at how little the advertising material has changed in a hundred years”, says the band’s David Brewis.

He goes on: “It’s still, ‘Hey ladies! Let’s not mention it too loudly but here is the perfect product to keep you feeling normal WHILE THE DISGUSTING, DIRTY THING HAPPENS’. And you realise that it’s a kind of madness that a monthly occurrence for billions of women – something absolutely necessary for the survival of humanity – is seen as shameful or dirty – and is taxed MORE than razor blades”.

He continues: “At every stage of making this song, I had to ask myself, am I allowed to do this? Is it OK to do this? And I cringed in the next room when I first showed it to my wife. But I think confronting my own embarrassment is a pretty fundamental part of what the song is about”.

So, not the first thing you’d usually consider when thinking about the First World War. But the album at large has nevertheless evolved out of a project for the Imperial War Museum first performed at the beginning of the year.

The starting point was an image in the museum’s collection, a visual representation of the measurement of the vibrations of gunfire. One particular image showed one minute leading up to 11am on 11 Nov 1918 and the minute after. The first showed a full minute of deafening noise, the second – as the war officially ended – near silence.

“We imagined the lines from that image continuing across the next hundred years”, says Brewis. “We looked for stories which tied back to specific events from the war or the immediate aftermath. In writing these songs, we felt we were pulling the war towards us – out of remembrance and into the everyday – into the now”.

Which means quite a few topics are actually covered. As well as sanitary towels, there are songs themed around ultrasound, Tiananmen Square, gender reassignment surgery, the Becontree Housing Estate in East London, war reparations, and more. All related back to those two minutes in 1918.

Listen to ‘Only In A Man’s World’ here:

The band will be touring in February, performing the album in its entirety, as well as other tracks from their back catalogue. Here are the dates:

1 Feb: Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery
21 Feb: Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
22 Feb: Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
27 Feb: Whitley Bay, Playhouse
28 Feb: Manchester, Dancehouse
29 Feb: London, EartH



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