320 – Rough Fields

Occasionally we like to go off the beaten track here at DT and deliver something that catches our fans by surprise so after Funkagenda’s stormer of podcast last week we thought we’d go leftfield and pluck a very talented artist from the relative obscurity for your aural delights this week. Step forward Rough Fields.

Rough Fields is the operating name of James Birchall, an electro-acoustic composer, lofi/noise/folk artist and electronica currently based in the electronic hotbed that is producer from Manchester.  After wowing us with a sleek set of productions that range across several genres the man from the north is almost impossible to describe as anything other than cool but we’ll have a go anyway. His sound brings together the disparate strands of his previous musical paths through folk, classical, rock, minimalism, electronica, electro-acoustic and experimental composition. Imagine Steve Reich crossed with James Holden and some Deslot flavorings thrown in and you wouldn’t be far off. Check it out now…

What’s your personal favourite track on it? Laveraq! It’s off the hook… there’s a digital version of the tracks floating around on the deep web, but I played the cassette for this mix, you can really hear the tape.  What’s the special ingredient in this mix? The side-chained third deck – a lot of the tracks (Lutto Lento, Pairs, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement) are in there but masked by the compressor, just providing body and texture, popping through when the rhythms dip in volume. What’s the best gig you’ve played recently? I actually haven’t played a lot recently, I’ve been locked up piecing together a new record for the last six months… it’s almost ready to go. That said, the Carefully Planned events in Manchester were really, really nice.   What have you got coming up? The studio work I’ve been doing is going to be released on Bomb Shop this year, and we’re putting a tour together at the minute – really looking forward to playing some beautiful places, St Giles Church in London, DCA in Dundee, the RNCM… pretty different to the types of venues I’m used to performing in. I’ve got a few interesting remix projects in the pipeline, too, which I can’t say too much about – it’s great to be able to bring out the tougher side of my sound though.    And finally, do you have a special message for our readers? Check out Laveraq, enjoy the sun while it lasts then go to Dimensions when it disappears, rise up against oppression and smash the capitalist elite.

Tracklisting Laveraq – Side 2 [Bomb Shop] Homes Built Over The Sea – Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement [Blackest Ever Black] Carl Craig – Angel (Jerome Sydenham’s Vocal Mix) [Planet E] French Fries – Yo Vogue VIP [DirtyBird] GoldFFinch – Funky Steppa (Trusta Remix) [Saigon] Sohrab – Hejrat [Touch] Boddika & Joy Orbison – Mercy (Boddika VIP) [Nonplus] Nas – It Ain’t Hard To Tell (Acapella) Ssaliva – Taro [Vlek] Cosmin TRG – Divided By Design [50 Weapons] Marcel Dettmann – Linux [50 Weapons] Invisible Path – Night Clouds [Jehu & Chinaman] Martyn – What is Room 101 [Dolly] Breach and Dark Sky – The Click [Naked Naked] Bambounou – Night [ClekClekBoom] Pairs – Hengshan Lu To Jing An Si [Language] Evian Christ – Drip [Tri-Angle] Lutto Lento – Second Partition [Jehu & Chinaman] Rumah – Murmur (James Fox Remix) [Church] Ensemble Skalectrik – Wrekwahn [Editions Mego] PHORK – Undone [NNA Tapes] T++ – Space Break [Erosion] Barker & Baumbecker – No Body (Machinedrum remix) [Ostgut Ton] Legowelt – Visions in My Mind [Unknown To The Unknown] Blanck Mass – White Math [Software]

Photo by:Sarah Faraday