Open Here is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Field Music. Released by Memphis Industries on 2 February 2018, the album combines elements of alternative rock and chamber pop, and includes a wider range of musical instruments than previous Field Music albums, predominantly featuring flutes, horns, and string instruments. The band attempted to create a unique instrumental combination for each song; Field Music's David and Peter Brewis felt more confident about expanding the range of instruments on the album, after having made a film soundtrack with an orchestra just before the recording of Open Here began.
Open Here is more overtly political in its themes than Field Music's previous albums, with many of the songs inspired by David and Peter Brewis' frustration with the result of the Brexit referendum vote. Songs like "Goodbye to the Country" and "Count It Up", the latter of which focuses on societal privileges enjoyed by white members of the middle- and upper-class, directly address Brexit; David Brewis described them as "definitely the angriest songs I have ever written". Other songs were inspired by David and Peter Brewis' children and the responsibilities of parenting, including "No King No Princess", which speaks out against social conceptions of femininity and masculinity.
Despite occasionally serious or cynical topics, Field Music attempted to infuse a sense of optimism and fun within Open Here; the opening track "Time in Joy", in particular, was described by Peter Brewis as an effort to confront difficult times "with a deliberate sense of fun". Open Here was the last of five consecutive albums Field Music recorded at their home studio in Sunderland, which was to be demolished shortly after the album was completed. Field Music involved a large number of guest musicians in recording the album, including saxophonist Pete Fraser, trumpeter Simon Dennis, flutist Sarah Hayes, and singer Liz Corney of The Cornshed Sisters, as well as the band's usual string quartet.
"Count It Up" was the first single from Open Here, and a music video was released for the song. Additional singles included "Time in Joy" and "Share a Pillow". The album received positive reviews, and appeared on several year-end lists of the best albums of 2018. Several reviewers compared Open Here to the work of such artists as David Bowie, Talking Heads, Steely Dan, Prince, Peter Gabriel, and XTC.
Background
Open Here is the sixth studio album by Field Music, the English rock band consisting of the brothers David and Peter Brewis. A follow-up to their 2016 album Commontime, it was released through their label Memphis Industries. In a press release, David Brewis said: "Where Commontime felt like a distillation of all of the elements that make up Field Music, [Open Here] feels like an expansion; as if we're pushing in every direction at once to see how far we can go." The news release also described the album as "bigger in scale, and grander than anything Field Music have done before", and compared it to the works of pop experimentalists from the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Godley & Creme, XTC, and Todd Rundgren. Peter Brewis said the title Open Here was "kind of a joke" revolving around the idea of the album as a packaged consumer commodity, since pre-packaged products often have the phrase "open here" on them.
Musical style and composition
Open Here combines elements of alternative rock and chamber pop in the usual style of Field Music, which includes complicated chords, complex instrumentation, powerful drumming, and idiosyncratic but emotional lyrics. The album also includes the type of 1980s-style pop flourishes the band utilised in Commontime, further enhanced by arrangements featuring flutes, string instruments, and horns. Although Field Music has included these instruments in past works, they were used to a much larger extent in Open Here than in previous albums. Between work on Commontime and Open Here, Field Music collaborated with the band Warm Digits and the Northern Symphonia to make the soundtrack for the film Asunder as part of the 14–18 NOW series of events to commemorate the centenary of World War I. Peter Brewis said that working with the full orchestra on that project gave Field Music more confidence in expanding the range of instruments in their own arrangements, inspiring them to use more wind instruments in addition to their usual string quartet. He said the band sought to create an album that was concise and coherent, but also going in multiple musical directions at the same time.