field is a lushly inviting piano-led EP from Annstiina, an artist based in Järvenpää, Finland. Previously succeeding in the art pop realm, the artist stirs here with an embrace of improvisation and serenely contemplative piano textures. Annstiina will return to a more experimental pop realm on upcoming releases, though field plays as a lovely, introspective interlude that achieves a strong emotional ferocity within its understated, delicate compositions.
The compositions derive from diary-like moments, piecing together important moments in one’s life — from falling in love for the first time, to the arduous wait of wartime, to the building of a life together. Opening track “feather” plays with an inviting, tonally consistent charm that invokes a sort of youthful innocence, with one’s life fully ahead. Meanwhile, the more vibrant and upfront processions in “concrete” feel representative of ups and downs — showing both a momentum-filled ardor, and then also a serenely intriguing gracefulness. Prancing piano turns into multiple layers at the two-minute mark with especially memorable immersion.
Another standout track, “field” is gorgeously emotive in its overall hopeful feeling and shifts between ethereal lightness and swelling fervency, ending on the former with satiating impact. Album finale “whatever it takes” also excels, maintaining that sense of hope and perseverance as bright piano tones emerge from pulsing, minimalist flows. field is a blissfully melodic success of an EP from Annstiina.
Annstiina elaborates more on the release’s themes and creative process:
“I intended to honor Jean Sibelius, but my mind was circling the generations who defended and built our country. I began to think about what it might have been like to fall in love and start to build a life together, only to watch your spouse leave for war. The music became a journey through this entire arc: from the first moments of falling in love to the daily life of fields and fears—the long wait marked by nature’s changes and hopeful letters to the front—and finally to the moment the war ends. It reflects a changed person returning to a transformed country, where you face a new kind of daily life: changed in so many ways, but still together. The story flowed with such necessity that the EP had to happen in that exact moment.”
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“field” is also featured in the genre-based, best-of Spotify compilation Obscure Ambient.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
