Interview by David DayThe music of the the Field (aka Axel Willner) is nothing if not distinct. Shards of samples and original loops over billowing four-four beats, his sound is immersive and engrossing. Willner comes out of a hot-blooded Swedish techno scene, but stays mostly to himself. Little is known about Mr. Willner aside from a few key stats: He's from Sweden, he was discovered in Kompakt's demo pile, and he's worked with the Volupté club in Stockholm. Soon after, he produced his first Kompakt 12", a highly limited but widely-spread demo mix of Annie's "Heartbeat", and a few compilation tracks. In 2006 came the dangerously woozy "Sun & Ice" 12" and remixes for 120 Days and James Figurine before issiung his full-length masterwork From Here We Go Sublime, a wonderwork of sliced samples and sunbathed beats that reveals a bit of his technique-- to sample and resample classic tracks beyond recognition.
On a crackling Swedish phone-line from his apartment in Stockholm, and with a decent grasp of English, Willner discloses more on his technique, his love of Lionel Richie, Gas, and American beer.
Pitchfork: First of all, where do you work?
Field: It's hard to explain. In Sweden alcohol is controlled by the government, you know? It's like a monopoly. You can't buy it at a regular grocery store, you have to go to a place called a Systembolaget.
Pitchfork: We kind of have that here. We have a state called New Hampshire. It's a good way to make money.
Field: Yeah, it probably is [laughs]. So that's what I do.
Pitchfork: What alcohol do you prefer? Wine, beer, or liquor?
Field: Hmm, at this moment I probably prefer white wine and champagne [laughs] probably…and of course a lot of beers. A lot of American beers. You know Sierra Nevada? The Pale Ale is good. Brooklyn Lager is very good. I don't really like Miller, Bud. Too light. [laughs]
Pitchfork: Have you always lived in Stockholm?
Field: No, I was born in the South of Sweden, which is a bit different from Stockholm. I moved here when I was 2. Then I moved to Lisbon, lived there for four years or something, and then I moved back to Stockholm and I've been living here since.
Pitchfork: Did you start playing music with guitars? Traditional rock music?
Field: Traditional punk. When I first heard the misfits that blew my mind. I wanted to sing like Glenn Danzig [laughs]. When I was 13 I started to play guitar. It's still an instrument I use quite often. I collaborated for a long time, but I started recording as the Field, I think it was like 2003 perhaps?
Pitchfork: Why do you make the music that you do? Was it a moment or did it happen gradually?
Field: I think it happened gradually. I think I got into drone music, like Stars of the Lid you know? Guitar stuff like that. I record under different monikers, you know, so everytime I start to get stuck, in a way, in making new music, I start a new moniker. It gives me a new approach to create a new thing.
Pitchfork: Do you go to clubs? Did you have experiences with raves or dance festivals?
Field: Not so much in Sweden, we don't have them so much anymore. We used to have a couple of raves. The music at those places is not so much my cup of tea. But I do go to clubs now that the electronic scene, like a lot of countries I think, we have a scene in Stockholm where there was not one before. It's changing.
Pitchfork: I think that's happening in a lot of cities. It's an international trend, that young people think it's fun. It seems your music works at home, but not in the club, but I've seen the videos on the internet and it does work, the bass is pounding. Did you make it for the club at all?
Field: It has no real special purpose, I don't add more bass for the dancefloor, it just happened that way and I kept it like that. That was my concern before I started to play live, that it wouldn't work for dancing, I didn't know how people would react. Of course there are a couple of tracks I don't play live, because I know they don't work. But the tracks that I know work, and it gets them excited and stuff.
Pitchfork: Which tracks work?
Field: "The Little Heart Beats So Fast" works, "Over the Ice" works. "A Paw in My Face" works, but I usually end with that song. I let it go all the way up to Lionel's "Hello".
Pitchfork: Lionel Richie, Jesus. That's so funny that it's Lionel Richie.
Field: It's too bad I might have to cut it, but I understand it's a rights issue, you know? That like gives it away, so.
Pitchfork: I like how you do that in the end with the…
Field: Flamingos?
Pitchfork: Yeah.
Field: It's fun in a way, to let it go.
Pitchfork: You definitely have an inspiration in American R&B.
Field: Well, it's always a track that really meant something to me, you know? It's something that gives me a certain feeling, you know? Like music can, something really gets me, something special happens and I get inspired and make it my own. Lionel is a childhood memory [laughs], my parents used to love that track when I was a kid. It was a mix of childhood memories. My mother is more into that Motown music in a way. My father is more traditional music guy. They don't really listen to it nowadays.
Pitchfork: Are you a self-taught musician or did you go to school?
Field: No, I was taught by my own. When I started college I used to go to school for it, but I changed my mind. Because I've been working with people who are schooled and they are more sensitive. I find it difficult to work with people that are schooled, in a way, because I have worked with people who have to do it a certain way, this sort of stuff. I am not like that.
Pitchfork: I don't need every detail, but what is the process?
Field: The process starts at this moment when I hear there's a song a want to make something else. And I sample it, looking for bits and pieces in it that I really like and I'm trying to rearrange it. It could go backwards, forwards, sideways, everywhere, you know? Double it, loop some new things, new instruments, like the guitar in the software. And of course the beat. That's probably the whole thing. Then I mix it live. Always.
Pitchfork: Oh really?
Field: That's why sometimes you hear this loud burst of stuff? And it sounds a like mistake? That's just me mixing everything.
Pitchfork: You mix it live, all the elements?
Field: Yeah, I mix it live to two channels, I have no return [laughs], I can't get it back…or I'd have to rearrange the whole song in a way.
Pitchfork: So you do it multiple times and pick one?
Field: I usually pick one that I'm satisfied with, I rewrite the song. Sometimes it happens of course that I make two or three different takes of one track. Always, almost always, it's the first one I'm satisfied with.
Pitchfork: So in "Sun & Ice", like, five minutes in…
Field: Yeah, that was a mistake. That was the delay, like, overloaded in a way. The whole computer started to make that noise, distortion and stuff.
Pitchfork: And you left it in there?
Field: Yeah, I can't work with a track, I can't go back to a track. I have to make it when I start. If I don't then I know I won't make the track at all. Sometimes it takes and hour, sometimes a whole night. 'Cause then I have to go back and master the recording. Live audio, the guitar, I don't want to have to go back and mix it. Sorry [laughs]. I'm the other way around from people that never finish a track. Some friends of mine that make music they can take a month for them to make a track.
Pitchfork: Musically, people compare your music to Gas, did you find that inspiring?
Field: Yeah, that's probably the most heavily-influenced of it all, really. And in ordinary life as well in a way. Because I've been listening to this for quite some time and it's comforting for me to listen to Gas. It's the most inspiring. [Kompakt] hadn't heard of me. I sent them a CD-R and that's it.
Pitchfork: Have you met Wolfgang Voigt [Gas]?
Field: I met Wolfgang twice, the first time was at the Total 6 party. It was a nice party.
Pitchfork: What do you like about Kompakt that makes you want to sign with this small label?
Field: I like the Pop Ambient series as well. I remember really liking them from the start. I think Wolfgang has really guided things, and I like All. I'm not crazy about the harder things. They have to be in the right context and I don't really go out to clubs and stuff. I'm more of a home listener. I like listening to music at home. Most of their output is really great [laughs].
Pitchfork: Did you have a mentor or someone who showed you how to work with this music?
Field: No, It was that age when the home computer was in every home. Like 1995 or 96, when the internet really bloomed. I started using a program called Buzz, a Finnish tracker program that was free. Since then I am stuck in it [laughs], I keep using that program to make music. I don't know what's happened to it. It works for me.
Pitchfork: It's the same model or version as well?
Field: Almost [laughs], but it works for me [laughs].
Pitchfork: Yeah, I wouldn't change it.
Field: At the time, me and my friend Ola used it as a studio. Guitar, drum machine, keyboads, and voice. He had more computer experience than I had so we learned it together. We don't record together much anymore though.
Pitchfork: What is coming up for you in the near future?
Field: I have a couple of dates in Europe, mostly. Germany, Greece, Spain…somewhere else, I don't even rememeber. Three weeks ago I played in Athens at a Kompakt night. I was there for 28 hours [laughs].
Pitchfork: I know Kompakt is getting bigger in Japan, I imagine they would love you there.
Field: [laughs] Japan, I'd really like to go there.
Pitchfork: Do you play live with Buzz?
Field: No, no that's too unstable [laughs]. I don't have the guts to do that. I play with Abelton, like the rest, almost, unfortunately.
Pitchfork: Are you doing more remixing as well?
Field: Not really, a few from time to time. The 120 days remix that was really hard to work with, because it's so different from how I do the music, as I told you. I really like it, I really like the original, but there were little sounds I could work with, you know?
Pitchfork: It's not Lionel Richie.
Field: [laughs] No, it's not like that.
