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Field Music Unleashes A Howl Of Synth-Pop Rage In 'Count It Up'

Working under the name Field Music, brothers David and Peter Brewis have spent the last dozen-plus years making music that's morphed, expanded and shape-shifted with every new album. It's hard to narrow down a one-line descriptor for Field Music's sound, but think of the smartest and spikiest U.K. pop-rock songs around and then add layer upon layer of invention, elaboration and, at times, full-blown excess.

Field Music's new album, Open Here, finds the band reflecting on (and often railing against) a post-Brexit world. Its new single, "Count It Up," is especially pointed — David Brewis calls it "a howl of rage set to what's basically my version of 'Material Girl,'" which sums up the whole enterprise shockingly well. More specifically, it's a song about privilege: about the ways built-in advantages can make us feel like the world is more of a meritocracy than it is.

Shot in Sunderland by director Andy Martin, the song's video aims to capture the ups and downs of a vulnerable but resilient city.

"I think we initially talked about filming in places that were either conspicuously run-down or conspicuously well-to-do," Peter Brewis writes via email. "But once we started, we realized that the most interesting locations were the ones that had been up and down and sometimes were up and down at the same time; derelict factories that used to be the economic center of the city or former shipyards that had been turned into apartments or business parks. ... But, you know, driving around there at night, you see that life still goes on. Normal people in normal homes getting by and doing their best while the street lights flicker on and off."

Open Here is out now via Memphis Industries.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)