Pitchfork

So, Field Music are not breaking up. They're also not exactly together. Confused? That's probably because you subscribe to what the Sunderland fellows call "the machinations and mechanisms which go along with being tagged as an indie band." The phrase comes from a recent MySpace post from Field Music's David Brewis, who spoke out in an effort to dispel the greatly exaggerated reports of his band's demise.

"Contrary to some of the things that have been 'quoted' (ahem!)," the Brewis brother wrote, "we're not sick of our music, we're not sick of each other, and we're not 'splitting up', mostly because it just doesn't work like that."

Instead, Brewis wishes to reconceptualize Field Music in a way. "In essence, Field Music is just the name of a company, whose directors happens to be me, Peter and Andy-- there doesn't seem to be any reason why Field Music the company can't produce and release records that aren't necessarily by Field Music The Band. And we're hoping that Field Music The Company can be much more productive than Field Music The Band ever managed to be."

The quick summary: "We've decided simply not to make any immediate plans for Field Music The Band. We're still going to make music together, because we like doing that, but we've no intention of sticking to any strict format with regards to what we record and what we release."

This all more or less falls in line with what David Brewis told Pitchfork back in February (the same month Field Music's Tones of Town hit Stateside), when he said the quote-unquote band was "going to take a break for a while" to save money and rejuvenate creativity.

David, then, has turned his attentions to his previously mentioned School of Language project. In a similar post under that act's MySpace banner, Brewis addressed the Field Music breakup thing again and went on to reveal that School of Language is on quite a roll.

"The School of Language record currently taking shape," wrote Brewis here, "is merely the first of these next-phase Field Music experiments. Primarily recorded by me alone and consciously susceptible to the cut-and-paste tangents induced by computer-based recording, these new songs are resolutely un-band-like; obtuse, personal and, for the most part, completely unplayable."

Brewis will share these new, un-band-like compositions live-- in "substantially more sparse" arrangements than their studio counterparts-- at School of Language's very first gig, going down July 8 at Sunderland's Royalty pub.