THE WEEK THAT WAS

The Week That Was, written and recorded in late 2007 at Field Music's 8 Studio in Sunderland, emerged from an imagined crime thriller dreamt up by Field Music's Peter Brewis's and inspired by Paul Auster's labyrinthine storytelling. Peter started writing the songs as if they were moments, instances of perspectives within this story. The story was left to fall away, leaving a puzzle of musical snapshots. The songs are the evidence in this particular mystery and the victims, perpetrators and onlookers raise questions with concerns familiar to us all. How do we deal with the fragments of information we receive through the television, radio, the internet? How do we balance the distrust we feel for mass media with our dependence on it? How does this relationship influence our hopes and actions in our real lives? And finally, what would happen if we decided not to deal with it anymore and switched off the information flow by throwing away our TVs, radios and newspapers? The anger, confusion and sorrow details the week of Peter's own enforced switch off. This may be about as conceptual as Peter will ever get.

Musically the record is an expansive tribute, paying direct (and indirect) homage to the wildly ambitious Linn Drum and Fairlight experiments of Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and Tin Drum-era Japan. This fused with the typically detailed arrangements and sense of drama makes The Week That Was a brain-shattering, 32 minute epic, straying further outside the conventions of most indie-guitar music.

The Week That Was has a cinematic quality not immediately obvious in Field Music's previous recordings. Yesterday's Paper wouldn't seem out of place as an alternative soundtrack to the bureaucratic nightmares of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, though with the surreal melodrama replaced by an uncomfortable realism. True to it's title, Scratch The Surface sounds like an inescapable, nagging, psychological itch - discomfort dragged into the realms of psychodrama. The Airport Line conjures the optimism of a train journey between Newcastle airport to Sunderland. The Good Life seems to question the rose tinted monocle of the TV eye. More evocative still are the cycles of melancholy running though It's All Gone Quiet and Come Home, both eulogies to love, loneliness and dependence.

The record features contributions from Peter's Field Music colleagues, Andrew Moore and David Brewis, along with Pete Gofton on vibraphone, singing by Jennie Redmond, John Beattie on cornet and Laura Cullen on flute, as well as percussive and vocal duties from This Ain't Vegas' Jordan Hill and Richard Amundsen. The strings were played by Emma Fisk and Peter Richardson (veterans of previous Field Music albums) and Pauline Brandon. The success of the album, however, pivots around Peter's deftness and ingenuity as producer, engineer, writer, instrumentalist and singer - it's hard to think of even a handful of artists who would attempt to harness such a sprawl of ideas, let alone who could pull off such a project so astutely.

The Week That Was - album 18 August UK, 23 September North America

Learn To Learn
The Good Life
The Story Waits For No One
It's All Gone Quiet
The Airport Line
Yesterday's Paper
Come Home
Scratch The Surface

Scratch The Surface - single 23 June

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New Touring

9 Aug 2008 The Distraction Weekender Newcastle, Northeast
14 Aug 2008 BBC 6 Music session - The Brain Surgery Manchester, Northwest
14 Aug 2008 The Deaf Institute with School of Language Manchester, Northwest

Old Touring

13 May 2008 - The White Room Sunerland, Northeast
16 May 2008 - The Luminaire, Kilburn, London, Field Music Presents..School of Language and The Week That Was
18 May 2008 - Tyneside Cinema Newcastle, Northeast
31 May - Wychwood Festival, Cheltenham Racecourse
21 Jun Leeds, Brudenell Social Club w/ School of Language
22 Jun Newcastle, The Cluny w/ School of Language
29 Jun Glasgow, Mono - Hey You Get Off My Pavement Fest