Gudrun Gut recommends The Field’s Looping State of Mind

Gudrun Gut is a musician, DJ and owner of the label Monika Enterprise. Not only being an early member of Einstürzende Neubauten Gut also co-founded the legendary German bands Malaria! and Mania D. She lives in Berlin, where she co-hosts the weekly radio show Oceanclub together with Thomas Fehlmann.

Even though I listen to loads of music, I don’t usually listen to a new record every week. I’m more the type to get attached to a specific artist and then follow him or her intensely. I’ve been a big fan of The Field since the very first twelve inch, he released on Kompakt in 2005 and needless to say, I was anticipating big things from Looping State of Mind.

The album has surpassed all my expectations. It’s very much in line with The Field’s previous releases, which are very loop-based. But these aren’t your normal loops: they’re incredibly precise and bril-liantly cut and spliced moments of sound, that immediately draw you into the music. It’s hard to describe the difference between the average loop and what The Field does, but I would say it’s a difference in emotional quality. The repetition – often a spoken phrase or syllable – is embedded into the rest of the music in a way, that makes it kind of like the song’s motor – something, that drives or propels the music forward. Of course there is more than one sound being looped and the smallest non-vocal micro-samples are like cogs in the machine of a bigger, syncopated push … which is partially due to the fact, that some of the songs were written with a band and played with a live drummer.

But the sound always stays warm, which is why it has a kind of krautrock feel to it, even though it’s undeniably techno. I think you can categorize it as a form of serial music, because he’s clearly operating from within some sort of compositional system – mostly based in the framework of his loops. Maybe my description sounds intellectual, but honestly the music just makes me happy. It’s a deep, deep joy that I get from listening to Looping State of Mind, which also comes from the organic way in which the songs build and turn and explode— totally different from your average techno album.

Published January 13, 2012.