Ambience from the Field.

The Field, From Here We Go Sublime (2007) [7.4]
I am not going to knock the goodness of this record; I think the high quality of the music is, for the most part, undeniable. Certainly when taken in context with the ambient techno genre, From Here We Go Sublime stands head and shoulders over the majority of other releases. Objectively, I can easily see why this has remained the most acclaimed album of the year so far. It's the subjective aspect that trips me up; namely, as much as I adore electronic music, I just don't think I'm cut out for this whole ambient techno thing. I can appreciate it, sure, and it might even be something I would consciously want to listen to from time to time, but I doubt it's something I could ever go completely ga-ga about in the same way I would approach, say, an Underworld or Kraftwerk album.

That having been said, From Here We Go Sublime can be maddening as hell if you don't approach it the right way. If you sit with the headphones on and attentively try to capture each nuance of these 66 minutes, your brain will probably warp itself into some boredom-induced stupor. Ambient techno is one of the most reactionary genres imaginable: one of its most basic tenets is that development and change are entirely unnecessary. If you have a 7-minute track you can rest assured that what you hear in the first sixty seconds is more or less what you'll be hearing for the next six minutes. Paying scrupulous attention to this level of uniformity for well over an hour cannot be good for anyone's health, especially if the only goal in mind is to simply enjoy an album. The best way to tackle something like this, then, is to do the opposite: not completely ignore it, of course, but use it as tranquil, air-filling background music. While doing something else, the mind will no doubt drift onto the music for a couple minutes, be sufficiently wooed, and then drift off again, creating exactly the type of mindset necessary for listening to this. Little by little it will crawl under your skin and work its subtle magic, creating a trance that -- while not exactly sublime -- is undeniably alluring.

Standout(s): "Over the Ice," "A Paw in My Face," "The Deal."