090: Foreign Fields - Bloodstone
Somehow, in these often great and terrible times, a full twelve years has passed since I first feel for, and subsequently wrote about, the music made by Brian Holl and Eric Hillman. Then, briefly, called Flights but since known as Foreign Fields, the pair have quietly released some of the most painstaking and breath-taking music we've heard throughout that passage of time.
Through the sparse and layered folk of their debut, Anywhere But Where I Am, through dense, heaving dark-pop soundscapes, the pair have never been afraid to rip it up and start again, each release a slight reinvention, a twisted take on what's come before.
Over the past half-decade, Eric and Brian spent valued time actively trying to simplify their lives. Having returned to their home state of Wisconsin, they retreated to the wilderness to painstakingly write and record their all-encompassing third LP, The Beauty Of Survival, in March of 2020. In its tumbling aftermath, with the world drastically changed, they realised a desire to do things differently. With the social fabric we considered set in stone, with peripheral lines and lives so blurred, they made a vital decision to actively seek out joy.
Pulling a live band together with their long-time musical companions Nate Babbs (drums) and Nick Morawiecki (guitar), ideas were shared, songs were sketched in real-time, and they focused on no longer being so precious about their band’s output. The result is What It Cost, their fourth full-length album and another reimagining of all that the band stands for. A collection of ten newly-formed
songs, it's a record that is buoyed by friendship and the guttural power of collective, collaborative spirit.
Often jaunty and playful, always tender and exquisitely delivered, the album draws to a close with two of the band's most graceful ever songs. Firstly, ‘Bloodstone’ drifts like a pensive fog for some five-and-a-half minutes. Written by Eric for his wife, the song ponders the idea of what it would mean for that bond to no longer be there, to remove something so intrinsic to your life and how you might respond to that. It’s a remarkable piece of music, the kind of song that finds you holding your breath until the last note has passed.
It’s followed by ‘Waking Up’, another graceful and captivating acoustic ballad, that calls back to their debut all those years ago. Providing a small gap in the clouds which gather through the song preceding it, ‘Waking Up’ sings, as the album so beautifully does, to something realised and held.
It’s an ode to togetherness and to gratitude; to the malleable but unbreakable bonds that remain solid no matter
how thick
the malaise
of life
so often
gets.
~
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