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Scott Fields Ensemble: Barclay
by Glenn Astarita
Guitarist Scott Fields' distinctive approach to composition marches to the next level on this third installment of the Beckett Trilogy," where he uses additional Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906-1989) plays as an inspiration for these three extended works, based on the novelist's text/plots. The ensemble seemingly weaves some of Beckett's black comedy and humor into concise and rather spirited statements via geometric, non-linear and asymmetrically paced grooves with incongruent slants, offering some brain candy for your psyche to nibble ...
read moreScott Fields Ensemble: Samuel
by Troy Collins
The works of Samuel Beckett have been a recurrent source of inspiration for guitarist Scott Fields. Samuel is Fields' second effort at conveying the master's prose through pure sound, following Beckett (Clean Feed, 2007). Transposing the original text of Beckett's plays into precise pitches, chords and time signatures, Fields transforms Beckett's wordplay into melodies and harmonies that share more than a passing resemblance to jazz. Despite their cerebral origins and abstruse character, the ensuing works are in fact fairly accessible.
read moreElliott Sharp - Scott Fields: Sharfefelder
by AAJ Italy Staff
I percorsi dei due chitarristi d’avanguardia Elliott Sharp e Scott Fields sono piuttosto differenti, anche se indubbiamente si possono trovare alcuni punti in comune. Sharp è una delle espressioni più importanti e coerenti della scena downtown newyorkese e mette assieme progetti di amplissimo spettro che lo vedono passare dal blues arcaico rivisitato alla sperimentazione più radicale. Scott Fields è meno noto ma è una delle risorse più importanti della scena di Chicago, anche se da molti anni preferisce rimanere piuttosto ...
read moreScott Fields: Bitter Love Songs
by Troy Collins
While the sardonic album title alludes to a session fraught with rancorous despair, guitarist Scott Fields' Bitter Love Songs is, perhaps ironically, one of his most accessible efforts. Born in Chicago, but now based in Cologne, Germany, Fields recorded this date in his new home town with German bassist Sebastian Gramss and Portuguese drummer Joao Lobo. An iconoclast who favors unusual instrumental combinations, this is his first guitar trio recording since Mamet (Delmark, 2001), with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer ...
read moreScott Fields Freetet: Bitter Love Songs
by AAJ Italy Staff
“Sì, certo. Possiamo rimanere amici in ogni caso”; “Ti andavo bene finchè i tuoi amici non si sono impicciati”; “Il mio amore è amore, il tuo amore è odio”. Parte dai titoli, ma anche dalle impietose e stringatissime note di copertina la tremenda autoironia di questo disco, in cui Fields sembra voler riflettere con cadenze tragicomiche sull’amarezza e sul fatalismo degli incontri sbagliati della vita. Come quello con un musicista che “sembra apprezzare la tua musica ma poi, appena trova ...
read moreScott Fields: Bitter Love Songs
by Clifford Allen
The Freetet is ostensibly Cologne-based guitarist Scott Fields' traditional blowing vehicle," and Bitter Love Songs is his first in the guitar-bass-drums format since Mamet (Delmark, 2001), with bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Michael Zerang. On Bitter Love Songs, he's joined by German bassist Sebastian Gramss and Portuguese drummer Joao Lobo. What makes this date a semi- departure for Fields is that, in the last six years, most of his work has been for chamber ensembles with unique instrumentation; improvised but ...
read moreScott Fields Ensemble: Denouement
by Troy Collins
Chicago-based guitarist Scott Fields most successful projects, such as Mamet (Delmark, 2001), and Beckett (Clean Feed, 2007), offer a novel merger of structured improvisation inspired by literary sources, this album included. Recorded in 1997 and previously available only on Fields' own tiny Geode label, this session sat dormant for ten years before this Clean Feed reissue.
Denouement features a unique double ensemble; two electric guitar trios playing in tandem, but rarely in unison. In 1997, Fields' working trio ...
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