This album is described as "White noise electronica which is trying to fuse together Edgar Allan Poe's 40s America with Paul Auster's contemporary America". In spite of this somewhat forbidding description, the tunes here are mostly gentle and melodic, even when they have titles that lead you to expect something wilder, like Freakout Part 1.
As you might imagine from the namedropping of the American authors, the artists behind the Fort Fairfield project are big readers; a literary bent also evident from lengthy and lyrical track titles like Too Long A Sacrifice Can Make A Stone From A Heart and The Forest Awakens At Night To Reveal Another World. The bookworms in question are two brothers Tom and John Luck from near Lake Vattern in South Sweden.
Based on the voice samples that punctuate the 13 tunes, the duo also seem to be movie buffs. The title track includes dialogue from Donnie Darko while Live for the Railroads incorporates a woman tearfully reading a poem 'Ten Things I Hate About You' from the 1999 romantic comedy of the same title that starred Heath Ledger.
People's Faces features a sound bite from DiG!, a well regarded (but obscure) 2004 music documentary by Ondi Timoner about the bands Brian Jonestown Massacre and Dandy Warhols. The short exchange lifted from this is very striking : "He fucking broke my guitar motherfucker/You ok man?/Yeah I'm ok/ You get hurt? Is that blood on you? /Yeah / From where? / From people's faces" After this the track itself is a bit of a let down - it only lasts a little over a minute so doesn't really build anything substantial around the dialogue.
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A lot of the tunes are like this, not necessarily so brief, but with the same effect that an epic concept has been too rigorously edited down. Asa result, any hints of Sigur Ros style grandness quickly peters out - the short track Sounds Of Birds is another prime example of this, but even the longest (Grace) is guilty of fading too abruptly.
The overall sound of Fort Fairfield is similar to that of the duo Boards of Canada while Ode To Mogwai reveals another Scottish inspiration.
The nice cover snapshot of a father and toddler on a beach together with the album's subtitle ("A tale about love in retrospective") suggest that the tunes are built around a nostalgia for the past although the titles give no obvious clue of such a united theme.
In general, the album is a little fragmented but at heart the gentle, melodic folktronica creates a warm and atmospheric glow and has much to recommend it .
If you move quickly you can download the album for free from the Acutronica label's website. (The offer ends 31st March 2010 so hurry while stocks last!).
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