The collaborative duo Fields Ohio has returned with another slice of modern nostalgia. The music draws from the last few decades, while the images recall an even more distant time, part Norman Rockwell and part black-and-white. While listening, one may feel as if one is hopping through the decades like a restless time traveler, lingering long enough in each era to enjoy some of the local sonic ambience.
The first sounds clearly come from the 21st century. Kind ukulele enters, an instrument that has gained a surprising new traction in pop. And then, what has become known as the “Enigma beat” cycles the older listener back to 1990, even though one is still aware that it is 2026. When “Half Gods” switches from a classic hip-hop beat to something more meaty, one wonders at the duo’s impressive library of influences. All too often, styles vanish before we tire of them; Fields Ohio waters them like flowers in a deserted greenhouse, trying to keep them alive as long as possible. Late in the same song, a 90s trance pattern develops, demonstrating that there is less distance between the eras than previously imagined. “One Who Looked Up At the Sky” boasts trip-hop beats, faux disco orchestration and an Indian vibe before a late flirtation with drum ‘n’ bass. “The Storyteller” offers a blend of X-Files timbres and an espionage mood.
The title cut, “Forever Frightened by a Ghostly Band of Doubts,” includes evaporated voices like restless ghosts, confirming the fact that the past is always with us, both literally and emotionally. Despite the set’s club-like qualities, the titles seep with a gentle melancholy, suggesting discarded dreams and imagined futures; by shifting backward in time, the duo engages in reimagining; did things have to go the way they did? Might they have headed in another direction? The wordless singing and church bells of “A New Testament” soothe, while the lonely groove of “The Time of Factories Had Not Yet Come” exudes a sense of isolation.
Fortunately, Fields Ohio won’t allow listeners to dwell in regret. The psychedelic “The Tales and the Persons” is one of the album’s most upbeat tracks, built upon a sitar riff that rises to the fore in the closing minute. And closer “Sun Was Out and the Trees Were Like Great Bonfires Against Grey Distant Fields” (which joins ken=en’s “There Was a Fish in the Coffee Maker!” as one of the year’s best track titles) gallops out of town like a victorious Western gunslinger. A ghostly band of doubts may haunt our minds, but a ghostly band of beats dispels them. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 