The Field Register

"Sounding Out", the leadoff track on Tire and Caster, begins with a tempered beat, delicate guitars and hushed vocals. Thoughtfully placed lines of sound laid out like a neatly made bed pull in every which way without leaving a wrinkle behind. Yet something is building just under the surface. A delicate force between space and object - the friction caused when two separate beings rub against one another creating a dissonant form of energy. Electricity.

So how can a band that sounds like it could fall asleep behind the wheel kick your ass in a drag race? Building upon layers of texture and space, Montreal's The Field Register invite you to listen to their newest record carefully 'cause you just might learn a thing or two.

It's not often I hear a batch of songs crafted with such precision and at the same time feel blown away by all the possibilities. Mogwai comes to mind, except these guys come from a place where beauty waits around the corner, slowly building each track into something gigantic, then allowing the songs to crumble under their own weight just in time for the next one to begin.

I can't stop playing the song Fair Grounds. Lightly picked acoustics and ringing guitars lay the framework for the most collosal thing I've ever heard until it all comes crashing down on your head in a matter of five minutes. Guitars snake over and under a weaving bassline, working their way into the fold just in time to launch into fuzzed out oblivion. The more I listen, the more I hear and yet to listen too closely would be missing the point. While each song on Tire and Caster is its own entity, the album deserves to be played as one track carving out a landscape as expansive and slippery as dusk melting into darkness.

Try and wrap your head around this one and you'll only fail. Instead, lay back and let the Field Register lull you to sleep. It's OK, you'll wake up feeling like a million bucks.
- Tyler Botts | 2006-06-28 - Indie Workshop

Field Register Whether unleashing a raucous guitar squall in a post-shoegazing blowout or uttering soft vocals in a sublimely svelte epic, this local quintet proved themselves worth their salt and pepper on their 2003 debut album, Eastern Shore. Since 2002, these former Maritimers have also moulded a stunning live show—word to the easily hypnotized. - Mirror (Montreal)

Field Register
Tire & Caster
By Chris Whibbs

While this Montreal band’s last album was a gorgeous piece of slow burning melancholy, this effort is cut from an entirely different piece of cloth. Here, they amp up the guitars, drums and volume, and while it may sound entirely different, the ear for melody and composition has not changed. The shift in sound is best illustrated in the excellent “Fair Grounds,” which starts out quite hushed until a dissonant guitar rips through and turns the song on its head. With the guitars’ insistent prodding and teasing the song pushes forward, drawing the listener in until it hits the emotional climax in a blaze of unabashed rock. Another highlight has to be the catchy “Ceramic,” which bursts out of the gate with shakers, pounding drums and a newly acquired confidence. The only problem with this makeover is that it’s going to be harder for the Field Register to make a name for themselves, as this type of upbeat indie is well-trod territory. While this album has a higher-than-usual quality to it, that spark of got-to-hear-it seems to be slightly absent. But, from the quality of the songs here, it is only a short amount of time until that happens. (Ships at Night) - Exclaim?!

The Field Register sail into Ottawa At Night
N. Justin Hunter



Ships in the night : don't let Montreal's The Field Register pass by

Transplanted East-Coasters approach music with an independent spirit

When you don't live in Montreal, you view the music scene like a matryoshka (those famed Russian nesting dolls) - it looks like there's only one, when in reality there's many smaller ones inside the big one. "I think that outside of Montreal, everyone thinks that there is a 'scene,' but within the city, there are just a bunch of smaller scenes, some just seem to get more publicity than others," says Jeannot Boudreau, the guitarist for Montreal's indie outfit The Field Register.
Gearing up for a multi-date Ontario tour (including a stop in Ottawa), Boudreau and Kees Dekker (vox) sat down with the XPress for an interview inside the comfortably spacious Treatment Room recording studio in Montreal that's co-owned by Dekker and the band's drummer, Gilles Castillou.

Surrounded by enough vintage audio equipment to make any studiophile drool, the two bandmates reflected on a musical journey that has taken them from their hometown of Moncton, New Brunswick, to the island of Montreal.

The East Coast gave birth to its own vibrant independent music scene during the early '90s, as Halifax bands began gaining national and international acclaim.

Growing up in Moncton in the early '90s, Boudreau and Dekker couldn't help but take notice of the Halifax music explosion, marvelling at the way these bands overcame a less than ideal geographical location.

This spirit extended to recording, and with the cost of commercial studios at the time being inordinately high, the decided to record their debut Eastern

Shore (2003) themselves using "primitive equipment."

They repeated the same formulae on their recently released follow-up Tire and Caster, an album that overflows with delicate reverb-drenched guitar lines and quiet plaintive vocals. Meticulously crafted, the record is equal parts anthemic and subdued, stylistically close to other indie groups but smoother around the edges than bands such as Wolf Parade or the Arcade Fire.

The same independent mentality has carried over to the business side of the industry, as Boudreau and Field Register keyboardist Rebecca Silverberg also co-own their own record label, Ships at Night Records.

While there are new considerations to take into account with the record label and studio, both Dekker and Boudreau agreed that their band and its music took precedence over their other projects.

"One of the great things about this band is that we never had any of those creative differences and problems that most groups experience, for us the music is the most important thing." - Ottawa Express