‘FORMATIONS, the new album by the locally grown international music group fields_, starts out with a sparse synth line that rises like a giant skeleton from the ruins of the W.W. Cross building. Once it’s risen, chaos reigns; recorded over the course of six years, the noisy post-punk brainchild of Wilton’s Drew Thilmany and Jaffrey’s Ben Rogers uses layer after looped layer to create a textured wall of sound.
“All of these songs were composed with texture more in mind,” Thilmany said. “The aesthetic vibe was really important.”
Thilmany’s creative process involved recording a series of 45-second synth “vignettes,” hammering them with effects and looping them into 30-45 minute segments, from which the duo broke down the most interesting bits and added Rogers’ drumming.
“You lose a lot of happy accidents when you’re just working with a computer,” Thilmany said. “When you loop stuff and just mess with it, it can surprise you.”
FORMATIONS’ scope started in Jaffrey, where longtime friends Rogers and Thilmany began making music together, but expanded globally, as Thilmany moved to Copenhagen, Denmark in 2013, recording some of his tracks there and flying back to the states to work with Rogers from time to time.
The duo reached out to musical friends around the world, recording vocals with singer Fuzzy Hell in Ireland, chasing down Luke Holstein, Greg Baker and Brian Chaudhry in New York City and adding some Neil Chaudry vocals from Florida. The collaborating artists were encouraged to make the songs their own, rather than simply play as instructed like a typical session musician, and so each track bears the unique creative influence of the added talent.
“It was people that we were already entangled creatively with,” Thilmany said, “and so it came about pretty organically.”
The group also reached out to longtime friend and Jaffrey artist Christopher Myott to illustrate the album, and were rewarded with more than they bargained for. Myott’s cover art of a giant skeleton rising from the ruins of Jaffrey’s W.W. Cross building was impressive enough that Rogers and Thilmany changed course from a fully digital release to a vinyl pressing paired with 100 signed, numbered and handcolored Myott prints.
“Because the art was so awesome, we felt that was the best way to present it and we decided if we’re going to go that far, we wanted it to be something where you could interact with the artwork,” Thilmany said.
Myott sketched the artwork while listening to the completed album, conveying a post-humanity, apocalyptic feel, with a hint of anti-consumerism, as the skeleton, reminiscent of the recent 12-foot Home Depot skeleton shopping craze, rises tethered from the rubble that was once a manufacturing plant.
“My teenage self would have been proud to still be hanging out with Ben and Drew and still making political artwork,” Myott said.
And as far as the music goes?
“I hope that it will resonate with people,” Thilmany said. “I know it’s loud and noisy and not something that everyone will resonate with – but the people that it will resonate with, it will resonate strongly. It’s so rewarding to have people feel like they picked up on it.”
FORMATIONSis available online or at Toadstool Music in Peterborough.