Looping State of Mind bangs with the same luminous intensity as his most popular work and avoids the stale returns that revisiting tried formulas usually brings.
[Release page] Let’s consider the title. At first blush it sounds like some kind of cynical self-commentary, as if Axel Willner had run out of ideas. One could jump to this conclusion easily, too, given Willner’s reputation for beautiful looped things – good for one album, sure, but maybe not the most fecund thing conceptually. Plus, towards the end of his drop-dead gorgeous debut From Here We Go Sublime, Willner seemed tired of The Field, especially in the titular finale. It’s a nice collage, but it could also be read as an ironic remark on the longevity of his simple ideas. This is the stuff of diminishing returns, is it not?
At least that’s what I thought when I first saw the title, but I immediately corrected myself. No one is that frank about failure, plus I would hope Axel Willner knows better than to undermine his work with an ironic disclaimer. Ironic or not, though, it’s disarmingly candid. We already know the guy had some difficulty following up From Here We Go Sublime, as Yesterday And Today sometimes made uncomfortably clear. Now he’s playing up the aspect of his work that made him famous, not to mention shot expectations for his sophomore effort so high they were impossible to fulfill.
To be sure: Looping State Of Mind does what its title suggests, and some cuts, especially those towards the beginning, could be easily distinguished as The Field in a blind test. He hasn’t changed his formula but he’s added much more – smooth layering, voices not clipped beyond recognition, and other colorful frills – a logical progression if I’ve ever heard one. That all these new ingredients sound so natural here is interesting. Looping State Of Mind sounds like it should have come before Yesterday And Today, not after. The mixed results of Yesterday And Today are a much braver extrapolation of Willner’s style than anything on Looping State Of Mind is, and in the case of a chronological flip the former probably would have been better received. However, Looping is a much more confident record than its predecessor. Even the contrast between the diffident fade-in of “I Have The Moon, You Have The Internet” and the instantly assured stride of “Is This Power” is symbolic. Both albums experiment with an established recipe, but now that Willner has experimented with experimentation itself, he’s more comfortable in his own skin than he’s ever been.
A warning: some of the beauty is gone, or at least the rapturous abandon of “Everyday” and “Leave It” is. Like a supernova, however, that initial brilliance has left behind a more measured elegance. “Mature” is almost the right word, but not quite. Tracks one through five on Looping State Of Mind are slow-burn growers, all of them. Take “It’s Up There.” Not only are its opening chords some of the most tastefully wistful and evocative ever recorded, but they give way to such a well-paced workout it’s hard to imagine things getting better after the second song. But they do. “Burned Out” is a calm, burbling stream of guitars and trademark Field oohs and aahs, while “Arpeggiated Love” adds arpeggios (what else?) to an already solid groove, paranoid sustains, and polite swoops of space disco cheese. Then in the middle someone asks if you’re gay. No, really.
Even though this is a great start, it still leaves the listener unprepared for the majestic sweep of the last two tracks. Without them Looping State Of Mind would merely be an accomplished ambient house record, but with “Then It’s White” and “Sweet Slow Baby” Willner proves himself high above that cut. The two pieces have the same effect as watching slow-motion videos of Jell-O jiggle or water balloons pop, but instead of evoking a stoned wonder at the mystery of motion, the music offers a mesmerizing close-up of The Field’s formula. Simple fragments of drums or piano repeat so incessantly they take on the same extra-musical hypnotic quality A/C and refrigerator hums do when you get used to them, which is pretty impressive. How do you choose a sample that doesn’t grate after the tenth, the hundredth, the thousandth loop, or the tenth time playing the song itself? Looping State Of Mind makes it look easy – “Then It’s White” has its ghostly moans and lumbering percussion, and “Sweet Slow Baby’s” snatch of pitch-shifted drums even includes the sound of a malfunctioning tape deck. Then there’s that aching vocal bit barely audible in the mess. Perfect.
Some musicians patent a sound then spend their entire careers fighting off musical typecasting, often with mixed results. Squarepusher is a good example – my love for Ultravisitor and Music Is Rotted One Note notwithstanding, I still want a Hard Normal Daddy 2. While Looping State Of Mind might not be From Here We Go Sublime 2, it should still be a comfort to anyone worried by Willner’s trajectory post-debut. It straddles that sophomore expectation-innovation line perfectly, and the fact that Looping State Of Mind comes after the uncertain foot forward of Yesterday And Today is a testament to both Willner’s achievement with his first album and the difficulty of following such an act. Yet he’s done it, incredibly and thoroughly so. Looping bangs with the same luminous intensity as his most popular work and avoids the stale returns that revisiting tried formulas usually brings. It’s a bold triumph, and I’m glad to have him back.
Looping State of Mind is out now on Kompakt. [Release page]
