Monolith Cocktail Blog

Field Kit ‘Don’t’
(Nonostar Records)

Cinematic electro-acoustic music with a small ‘c’, filled with gravitas and a hunger to stir the emotions, the Field Kit collective pairing of its central force and instigator, the Berlin-based composer-musician Hannah von Hübbenet, and her collaborative foil, the pianist-producer John Gürther, create mini filmic scenes and atmospheres together on the group’s eponymous debut album for Alex Stolze’s burgeoning imprint Nonostar.

Possibly the first album on the celebrated polymath’s label that doesn’t include Stolze’s magnetic tender collaborative skills (previous releases on the roster include the violinist, composer, songwriter and producer’s own solo work alongside his collaborative efforts with Anne Müller and Sebastian Reynolds on the Solo Collective, and with repeated foil Ben Osborn), Field Kit are nevertheless in a similar sort of neo-classical orbit to their label partner’s merger of strings imbued by centuries of swelling heartache and travail, voices and synthesised instrumentation effects.

Former students of both the Universität der Künst in Berlin and the Filmakademie Baden-Württemburg, violinist Hannah and pianist John now draw on that study for their inaugural adroitly blended album of ‘warm acoustic(s)’ and more ominous, incipient ‘cold mechanical’ movements and shadows: A sound that is described as ‘cyber-noir’.

Those cinematic qualities are in evidence throughout, with hints of Scott Walker’s late soundtrack work and also Johann Johansson’s on the almost bestial, caged and chained combative subterranean, hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck-raiser, ‘Human Behavior’. You can hear a touch of both Mica Levi and Jed Kurzel on the heightened mourned strings yearn ‘String Adrift’. There’s a sense that unforeseen forces are ready to emerge from the duo’s conjured atmospherics; perhaps something otherworldly or horrifying, or something from another age, coming out of the mists – I thought for some reason of a Viking longship on the solemn opening crackled piece ‘Distant Approach’.  Haunted coos, the vibrating resonance of finger bowls and a semblance of a removed Orientalism meanwhile permeate the plucked, dust trickled ‘Counterfeit’, whilst ‘Motorized Piano’ opens up the instrument’s inner workings and the movement of time for an almost clandestine thriller – the slow release UNCLE like drums roll in to set the pace; a race across a metro platform.

The single track we’re concentrating on however, and premiering the video of ahead of the album’s release next month, is the ethereal but fragile finale ‘Don’t’. Affected sighs, and sometimes heart aching strings, lunar synth and a gauze of electro-pop plaint form a bed for the manipulated vulnerable repeated vocals on a filmic score that borders on both trip-hop and the classical. Go now and immerse yourselves in this magical diaphanous suite from the collective.

Field Kits debut album is due out on the 4^th June 2021 through Nonostar Records. You can order it now through the label’s Bandcamp page. You can now buy and download the single ‘Don’t’ from today.

Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.