For their eighth album Flat White Moon, multi-instrumentalist Sunderland siblings Field Music have found much needed comfort, joy and inspiration in the sounds they grew up with, and their favourite ever records. They’ve also been spreading the love with community projects all over their city – sorry, “town”.

Words: Jo Kendall

David and Peter Brewis: family business.

Images: Christopher Owens

“I feel terrible about the political situation. There’s a new paradigm of political action where essentially it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t take responsibility for it.  People say that’s a terrible immoral thing that you did, then you say, ‘Well, I didn’t do that.  And if I did, it doesn’t matter, let’s talk about something else.’”

David Brewis

“I’m gonna go home and listen to Broadsword And The Beast. That was one of the big albums in our house when we were little,” laughs David Brewis, sat in the Field Music studio as Prog wraps up a Zoom session with him and his brother Peter, who’s at home in his kitchen. In an enjoyable 90-minute chat, today has mostly been an amble down memory lane, reminiscing about favourite music and the inspiration for their latest, and eighth, album, Flat White Moon. It’s been just over a year since their last record, Making A New World, was released. A project commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, it was a weighty 19-track concept album that explored life in the 100 years after the First World War – culturally, technologically, politically. Making A New World and its fabulous 2018 predecessor Open Here were “really difficult to play live,” says David. Field Music had found themselves in complex musical foxholes, reliant on click tracks, locked to continuous visuals and grappling some heavy themes. With Flat White Moon they’ve loosened the stays a little; the intention being for the sound to “have some swing,” says Peter, and “to capture me and Dave and the other members of the band playing together, a lot.”