[Video Premiere] Rewind Fields Releases Video for ‘Photographs’ from New Self-Titled Album

18 Feb

KATIE BROWN - 18 FEB 2022

A few years ago I was accompanying a friend to an informal and intimate gig, the kind where you have no idea who’ll be there or what you’ll encounter. Opening for the main act was Callum Lee, aka Rewind Fields, and he sang a small selection of songs while accompanying himself on keys. It’s not often that you know you’ve stumbled across an unsung - and rare - talent, but such was the case with Callum, the soul of a poet tumbling out on a tongue that phrased words and sounds with an engaging fluidity that was so natural, beautiful and compelling in its honesty and effortlessness.

Now, introducing Callum’s shimming and magical debut self-titled album under the moniker Rewind Fields proves that prescience correct: Rewind Fields, out this Sunday 20th February, is an astonishingly clever and engagingly complex work with a veneer of calm sanguinity. Like a duck gliding on the water’s surface, the album is a calming concoction of a work to listen to and appreciate for its California-sunshine listenability, but listening more closely you’re struck with a sense of turmoil in the water below - the feet furiously paddling and battling the current.

Layers of instrumentation, digital manipulations and Beach Boys-esque harmonies as a type of sonic collage change, morph and grow while each song charts its course - and these movements are never what is expected. But the arresting thing about the album is that these shifts and transpositions never feel contrived or jarring; rather, they contribute to a deeper sense of the narrative journey of the whole. Discordancy is never painful - it’s a testimony to emotional journeying and discovery. Indeed, the whole work translates as a snapshot of a busy mind behind calm eyes: a million and one thoughts, ideas and emotions battling for supremacy while the body, well, just keeps on walking, a cheery whistle on the lips.

Rewind Fields is the result of songs recorded between 2014 and 2017 and hoarded on an old laptop by Callum, who turned to these works to coax a new form out of them, often creating multiple versions of each before developing them into the final form that they take on the album. It’s an album looking at the past through a lens of forgiveness, kindness and acceptance, and a sense of tranquil nostalgia is infused throughout the whole, holding it together as a uniting thread through its fluctuations of chaos and disintegration.

Rewind Fields is tender, compassionate, reflective, and quite frankly exciting in its uniqueness. Lovers of Lawrence Arabia, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver take note: this one’s for you!

Watch our exclusive premiere of ‘Photographs’ (directed and edited with Callum by James Fink-Jensen) from Rewind Fields, and chase it with our delightful interview with Callum of Rewind Fields below.

Find Rewind Fields on Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Bandcamp | Spotify

KATIE: FIRSTLY, CONGRATULATIONS ON A TRULY STUNNING BODY OF WORK! HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE THIS PROJECT COMPLETED AND ON THE CUSP OF RELEASE?

Callum: Thank you! I mean the record has been hands off for a couple of months now. I’m proud of what it is, although sometimes I do have to resist the urge to go back and mix things a little differently. But you know you gotta let the child grow and get out the door and go on their own adventure, I can’t keep this one in the safety of the bedroom forever!

WHAT’S YOUR MUSICAL BACKGROUND? DID YOU LEARN INSTRUMENTS WHILE YOUNGER?

I learnt guitar from a young age, played saxophone in the high school concert band, and sung in musicals at school. I never thought of myself as a musician, I was never very serious about practicing. I thought it was a great excuse to get out of class, but really it was where the joy was at school for me.

WHO OR WHAT ARE YOUR KEY INSPIRATIONS?

My friends who play music, I think I try to sound like them as I play. Also my friends who are visual artists, writers, academics, thinkers, help create perspective and ideas. Then there’s the music, which often bookmarks memories with our friends. Specifically Sufjan Stevens, The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis ‘Kind of Blue’, The Flamencos, Blake Mills, Grizzly Bear, Caroline Polachek, Andrew Bird, Mid Air-Thief, Moses Sumney, Bon Iver, Gold Panda and The Avalanches.

THE VIDEO FOR ‘PHOTOGRAPHS’ IS A CLEVER ABSTRACT TAKE ON THE SONG. DO YOU THINK THAT DIFFERENT FORMS OF CREATIVITY HAVE THE SAME ‘LANGUAGE’ WHEN THEY’RE BY THE SAME CREATOR, AND DO YOU THINK VISUALLY WHEN YOU WRITE SONGS?

Yes I think so, for me at least, when I hear music I do see vague shapes and colours, rhythms in particular are quite an active visual in my mind. Rhythm translates well to film editing. I like to make cuts on the beat, at the end of a bar, on a specific lyric. When recording and writing a song I do imagine the time and memory, and the emotion of the moment that inspired it. It’s like how film music can be so effective, it is the subtext to what is being seen. The video for ‘Photographs’ initially wasn’t really what I had imagined for the song, but came out of limitations. I think a lot of art is born from limitations, and the artist is trying to make connections between the medium and the subtext of the person experiencing it.

YOU’VE CONSTRUCTED THE ALBUM FROM IDEAS SITTING ON YOUR LAPTOP BETWEEN 2014 AND 2017: WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO PICK UP SOME OF THOSE EARLIER IDEAS AGAIN? DID YOU NOTICE A SHIFT IN THINKING BETWEEN THEN AND NOW?

It was kind of emotional imagining that the younger version of myself felt like most of these ideas weren’t good enough to share. I’m finally getting to a place where I’m eager and comfortable to share the things that bring me joy. I also want to be someone who encourages others to share their ideas and to feel the worth in their own voice and perspective, because we are all wonderful creative beings.

DID YOU FIND THAT THERE HAS BEEN AN OVERARCHING THEME OR VISION IN YOUR SONGWRITING OVER THE YEARS?

It is a feeling that is hard to pin down into words and I feel like in every song I’m attempting to do so. It’s the kind of thing that if you notice you are feeling the thing, it disappears into the ether. It’s from the sun and it bounces off the moon and dances in the palm trees. It is nostalgia for something that has happened but also is nostalgia for something that hasn’t happened yet...

WHAT WAS YOUR PROCESS FOR STITCHING THESE IDEAS TOGETHER INTO A COHESIVE WORK?

I bounced out the stems of these old recordings and salvaged what I could. I then overdubbed other instruments and vocals to reframe what the original idea was. I went a little insane and actually made multiple versions for each song. Some tracks on the album actually crossfade into each version because I wanted something from each. I think I might do a release which includes every demo and other version of each song on the album. Might be more than 40 tracks.

YOUR SONGWRITING INVOLVES UNEXPECTED TWISTS AND TURNS, WITH CLEVER TECHNIQUES, LAYERS AND TEXTURES ALL COMBINING TOGETHER TO FORM BEAUTIFULLY UNIQUE WORKS. WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE KEY ELEMENTS IN YOUR SONGWRITING, AND HOW DO YOU DETERMINE THE WAY A SONG PROGRESSES?

I think in this record I indulge in every idea. The songs become quite cluttered and obscured, which works with the theme of the record representing the haziness of memory. The song in its raw form, just acoustic guitar and voice, is a blank slate, potentially derivative or simple. I think I treat the recording and production as a process of what-ifs and experiments that frame the song idea in a new way that surprises me or the listener. I think more recently reharmonising the melody of the song, using music theory to find different chord substitutions or extensions to try and tread new ground for myself and challenge my ear and my perspective on the melody and lyric.

THE ALBUM ADDRESSES THE IDEA OF ‘OBSERVING THE PAST WITH KINDNESS, FORGIVENESS AND ACCEPTANCE’ - DID YOU FIND CREATING THE ALBUM TO BE A CATHARTIC EXPERIENCE IN THIS RESPECT?

Cathartic yes at times eliciting a deep emotional response while listening to some of the songs. It has been challenging though coming closer to the release. They say art is never finished, it is abandoned. I’ll be practicing acceptance, releasing the music, and kindness recognising the hard work and love put into the album. There’s always more music to make, I’m not abandoning my love for creating.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN THROUGH THE PROCESS?

The muse is a short spark, try out ideas, work quickly, and stick with it. Every version of the piece could be THE version. Our creativity is valid, special and beautiful at every stage of our creative journey, recognise that and share it with others.

WHAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO YOU WITH YOUR CREATIVITY? WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE WITH IT?

My creativity affirms my ability to learn and grow and it is a practice that helps measure that growth. Being able to play instruments with better tone or skill, or being able to record ideas and make arrangements more effectively. It means other things in my life feel less daunting. I know there is a process to learning, relationships, jobs, new subjects, these things are achievable, knowable through persistence. I may be slow to learn but once I’m there, speed is irrelevant, I’m finally here with you and let’s make and share something beautiful together.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR REWIND FIELDS?

Potentially a vinyl release for the album later this year and a couple of outtakes and extras will be released as Rewind Fields. I’m recording a new record currently, whether that is another Rewind Fields record is unclear. I want to perform my music even more and the dream would be a tour when possible.

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