Solar Fields - Origin #1

[abasio]

 

Artist: Solar Fields

Title: Origin #1

Label: Ultimae

Released: 8 December 2010

Style: Downbeat, Ambient

 

Tracklist

 

1 Silent Walking (6:41)

2 Unite (9:25)

3 Bigger Stream (6:17)

4 Almost There (7:17)

5 Next Waiting (7:42)

6 Embraced (5:27)

7 Going In (7:50)

8 Automatic Sun (3:32)

9 Reborn (9:11)

10 OCT (15:50)

 

This album, a collection of unreleased tracks from Solar Fields over the last 10 years, came out of nowhere so there was very little time to build up my hopes or have any real expectations which I think was a good think because I would have been pretty disappointed with this release. You see, Solar Fields is an album artist: he creates albums that you should listen to from beginning to end and that flow in a wonderful way like a very good story. Obviously then a collection of tracks made over a span of 10 years which were deemed inappropriate or (dare I say it?) not good enough for an album or compilation release is not going to have the thing that Solar Fields really has going for his music, that sense of continuity, feeling and emotion all connected through once piece of audio storytelling split up into several chapters. Origin #1 is more like a book of short stories, by the same author but not connected to each other. In the same way just as one is getting interesting it is over and you feel disappointed but you are quickly through the weaker ones.

 

I have to say it, so I will get it out early on: this album has some BAD tracks on it. Track 3: Bigger Stream is actually painful to listen to. Sure it might be pleasant enough if you heard it on the radio among with other tracks like it and you never knew who it was from, but then neither would you look into who it was by as it is just bland and cheesy. To know that it came from an artist like Solar Fields though is where the pain comes in, how could he have sunk so low? What was happening in 2005 when he was releasing the Masterpieces that are Leaving Home & Extended? Had he taken a blow to the head or was he trying to impress some dumb hottie he met at a party? Either way it is best to be stricken from my memory: lalalalalalaaaaaa Solar Fields never made it! But damn, it still comes on every time I play the CD. This was the first Solar Fields track that I skip when listening to a CD but unfortunately it was not the last. OCT is also a very weak track, which is a damn shame because it is by far the longest. It is an uptempo track in the feel of Mirror Edge: in which I mean it is bland and doesn't really go anywhere. It's not bad per say but it is a long way from good and once again I am shocked that Magnus could have produced it.

 

Those are the only 2 terrible tracks on the album. The rest of the music is really good, especially the second track Unite which is among my all time favourite Solar Fields tracks of all time. The beats, the melody, the whole atmosphere of it are perfect. It is a wonderful track and is beyond a shadow of a doubt worth the money for the album all by itself. The only problem with the track is the knowledge that the next track is such a lte down. Imagine you are sailing among the stars with the Earth just a tiny speck beneath you, then a few seconds later you are hurled to the ground, passing through the earth's crust to the hell which contains Britney Spears and James Blunt (I know they are not dead but their music will already be in hell). This is my feeling after listening to Unite, followed by Bigger Stream. Unite is excellent and I really do feel like I am sailing through the stars, as if me and the sky are one but just like it is not connected to the following track neither is it connected to the preceding track.

 

The rest of the music is good, the sort of tunes you'd expect from Magnus over the years, some cool beats, nice melodies, melancholic atmospheres and an overall feeling of class that Solar Fields manages to exude in (almost) all his music. There is little sense of continuity and there are those 2 bad tracks but it is definitely worth getting. The blurb says that this is the first album in a series of 4 to be released. While I am looking forward to hearing them as it's always good to have more Solar Fields music, I fear that these releases will water down the Solar Fields catalogue. I hope that for the next three, more thought is put into the presentation of the tracks, perhaps some light mixing, that way Magnus can see easily when 2 tracks just should not follow each other. I also hope that there are no more forays into the more pop like sound or the Mirror's Edge style (I still don't credit that album as a Solar Fields album).

[Melancholyman]

I haven't got into this album deep yet, although my impressions this far is that it's a weak Solar Fields album. Unite is terribly good though. I am with you on 2005, what's that all about? But honestly I think that as artists, you can make maybe one or two albums total during your whole career that are masterpieces. I think it has to do with a certain time in your life when you are really connected with life, or things beyond life or whatever it may be, God, dunno...take your pick What I mean is that during that period of time what you create becomes so connected with "this" that it inevitably becomes a masterpiece. I think that James Murray will never make anything better than Where Edges Meet, I hope he proves me wrong. And for Krusseldorf, Simon Heath I think he perfected his talent with Bohemian Groove. I mean honestly, listen to Bluetech, Prima Materia and Elementary Particles, those two albums are such wonderful depictions of the psychedelic experience, to my ears he hasn't done anything after that that comes even close. To me it seems that this is just how things work, some period in your life you have that "thing", eh :s and what comes out of you during that time is wonderful, and I actually don't think or believe that a person can reach that place twice in a lifetime. And, Field Rotations new album coming up seems to be one of those "in touch with thing" albums, but regenzeit on Hope is WONDERFUL...eh..wa whatever...

[alphaCentauri]

I find this really good album, OCT very nice track, and it ends very well, unusual of course, but interesting, album; 8/10

[Trance2MoveU]

A collection of unreleased tracks over a decade from Solar Fields? Sounds like a dream.

 

Unfortunately it's a dream unrealized as most are not of the quality we've come to expect from Magnus. Unite and Reborn are great, but there is no flow or continuity to this album. Most seem like unrelated snapshots in time without a thread to connect them. As if compilation tracks were plucked from the ether. The lack of mixing doesn't help.

 

But this is Solar Fields we're talking about. His unreleased B-sides are still nothing to sneeze at. Well, except for the 15 minute snot rocket that is OCT. Yikes, get me a tissue.

 

Mdk