The album 'Brake Light Red Tide' was released by Field Report on April 28, 2020.
Sometimes small series of quests lead to a larger journey.
Milwaukee singer-songwriter Chris Porterfield, who creates music under his longtime moniker Field Report, had planned on the onset of the year to continue releasing new music in spurts on newly created label Fellesskap Records.
“I've been working with Daniel Holter [at Wire & Vice] to build out some kind of apparatus where we could just put stuff out as it comes and not have to worry about campaigns and convincing people about the value of something, and just kind of work quickly and independently,” says Porterfield.
A new album wasn’t in the cards until suddenly it was. The band recently released its fourth album Brake Light Red Tide. Porterfield will support it with a livestream May 2 at 8 p.m.
“I just had a look at the pile of things that we had done, and it just kind of hit me like, ‘I guess this collection maybe is a record,’” he says. “And they all seem to be talking about kind of the same thing. They had a similar spirit to them.”
“I don't even know what a record is in 2020, especially now, but it feels like a journey to me,” Porterfield continues. “It feels like a cohesive unit, sort of accidentally, sort of a snapshot of my headspace in a point in time. I think that they unlock one another a bit, and it feels like a journey. You end up going somewhere, and that to me feels like a record.”
Porterfield feels the album turned out the way it did due to the lack of pressure of a normal record label.
“I think it allows us to not be concerned at the onset about making something fit in with another thing,” he says. “I think we can sort of dive in and create little universes that were independent of anything else, and we could just kind of go all in on one thing, rather than be thinking during creation about how it was going to be fit in a sequence or with another song…And then it was cool to me to discover that even though we went into it with that mindset, it ended up working as a piece. So, we didn't have to reverse engineer anything, it just happened that way.”
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As a result, he feels the album is his best work to date.
“I think the writing is leaner,” says Porterfield. “It was both more straightforward and a little idiosyncratic. I tend to think that the best thing I've done is this most recent. And it was just sort of a restlessness. I think if an artist starts to think that their best stuff is far behind them, then they probably don't need to make anything new.”
Porterfield recently talked with the Shepherd Express about his journey making the album.
Has having a family has made you more grounded than in the past and better able to express yourself this time around?
It certainly impacted the workflow. I have to be more precise and intentional about working, and that probably plays out in how the work comes across too, I would imagine. It’s definitely changed how I work and how I think and all of it. I think every artist is kind of their own lens that life passes through and this certainly changed the shape of my lens.
The album’s title references the sensation of being stuck in traffic. What made you start thinking of that metaphor?
I think it references a line from “Push Us Into Love.” And I think I just liked how those words fit together. “Brake light, red tide.” I like the four monosyllabic words, and I liked the consonants together, and I liked the image of it.
There's a thing about being held against your power, I think, in both of those things, and it just conjures up sort of an image, a feeling, for me, at least, of just stasis. And I’ve learned that if something feels like a title at first, just go with it. Don’t overthink it. Because if you overthink it, you're going to lose the plot. So that was the first thing that popped up and that's what it's called. I think there’s a lot of themes of travel on the songs and going somewhere, and there's a lot of water themes too. So, I think it speaks to both of those.
Do you think the album’s songs talk about kind of pushing against the grain?
Yeah, I think so. I think it’s maybe a search for what the grain is. I think it’s a recognition of resistance and then trying to figure out what actually is resisting, what's causing the resistance. Is it the environment? Are you reading it wrong? Is it you? I think it's just a recognition of tension, of friction.
There's a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of seeking, searching.
Can you talk about a couple examples of that?
“Peoria,” the first song, I always just liked how that word sounded. I thought it was a beautiful word, “Peoria.” I just like how it feels, and I also like giving a shout out to Midwestern towns. I mean the story sort of came to mind, this person who's not sure if they should go leave where they are. A lot of uncertainty. Not sure if they’re leaving for themselves, or for everyone else.
I like the idea of daylight savings. I must've written half a dozen songs about daylight savings and the idea of losing an hour or getting one back. I think it’s a terrible idea in general, but it’s sort of a romantic thing to write about to use as a measuring stick for life, which doesn’t really care about our conception of hours. It is what it is.
But yeah, the idea of losing minutes every day, based on our conception of it. So yeah, that one's about getting out, leaving, wondering. In the last verse, there's the line, “In my hour of darkness.” Which is an homage to the Gram Parsons song that he does with Emmylou Harris. And I expect the listener to not only catch it, but then to take everything from that song and add that to the one that you’re listening to, so that's kind of the idea. It’s sort of a footnote, a Wikipedia page, or something. But yeah, that song by Gram Parsons is a relative to “Peoria” to me.
Next is “Breathe.” The actual song came quickly. The structure, or the shape of it is several years old. I started that in Garden Studio in L.A…It might be the other perspective to the narrator in “Peoria,” something similar, at least spiritually. But it’s basically just like wow, you really get lost in your mind…And if we were honest about what was going on, you might come to different conclusions or something.
Why was it important to start afresh with a new label?
This business changes pretty drastically all the time, and I found myself dedicating more bandwidth, brain power-wise, creativity-wise, emotionally, spiritually, dedicating way too much to the not creative side of things, and I wanted to find a solution where I wouldn't have to think about that stuff anymore. So, I’d been talking with Daniel for a couple of years about that if we could work together that could make sense for everybody.
And after talking about it for a long, long, long time, over the course of several years, we both got to the point where we were just like, “This feels right. Let’s do this.” So that affords the ability to work quicker, to work leaner, to know who's responsible for things, and gives us an opportunity to build something.
And I think that way of thinking and working has had an impact on the resulting music. I think it's maybe more patient somehow.
Do you think it's more patient because you were able to stick around here?
Yeah, maybe. And also, just not worrying about pleasing anyone else. We had no artificial timeline. It's just, it’s us. it's up to me, basically, if something’s done or not.
We can slam things, and poke them, and put them away, and cut them up. And a lot of the stuff was treated that way, although the last song, “Begin to Begin,” was recorded entirely in my house in a matter of an hour or so, and that was it. We didn't poke it at all, didn't even have anybody else do anything on it. It was just essentially a demo, but it felt like the right way to cap off this set this song set.
So, there's the luxury to both take our time and move very quickly, depending on what the moment was calling for. And so, that's why we have this thing. That's why we made it, to be able to do it on our time.
How would you describe your songwriting process?
There’s the initial life that got me to pluck them off the tree. They looked like they might be juicy and tasty, so I plucked them, gathered them. Then there’s the life of how they relate to one another in terms of a song. And a lot of times they’ll change on me after that. They’ll be totally different in a couple of years. Some of the stuff that I've fond of now, I’ll probably be embarrassed by then. And some of I didn't get now, I'll probably really like later.
That song, “Begin to Begin,” was written probably the fastest and also recorded the fastest. I was initially unsure that I wanted to do anything with that, because for a time to me it felt like it was almost a level of honesty that bordered on, I don’t know, pornographic or something. And I don’t really like doing the, “Look at me mope. Aren’t things sad?”
I think it ends maybe not optimistically, but not hopelessly. I was in kind of a dark year last year. And talking to a therapist and getting on some medication certainly helped me out a ton, because I felt like if I could leave that trail for other people to find, maybe they could find it encouraging to seek out similar help if they were so inclined.
So, I guess I rather like the last line, or the last verse of that song, talking about texting my therapist at 2:46 in the morning.
The band’s lineup has changed frequently over the years. What do you like about this version of the band?
I love being able to have Devin [Drobka] and Barry [Paul Clark] playing on the record together. We have a pretty good relationship in the studio, and we’re all sort of curious in similar ways.
The addition of Caley Conway cannot possibly be overstated. I love, love, love singing with her. And also, her sensibilities on guitar are totally different from mine, but they’re congruent in such a wonderful way.
And Tom [Wincek] just brings a totally unique sensibility also. I think we all learned a lot on making and touring Summertime, and everybody’s just seems more focused to me. We kind of know what works with this project now, and there’s still a curiosity and a restlessness. We know what we're capable of with the palette that we’ve used before, and what works and what doesn't and where we could push things. But everybody just seems dialed in musically. It’s a great group. I love how we sound on record together.
It seems the band got more experimental in some areas. Do you agree?
Yeah, there’s definitely some new to me chordal arranging on this one. I think I didn’t aim at any of these songs doing anything at the radio. And so, we had some liberty to just do whatever we wanted and whatever we thought sounded good. I always try to grow as a musician and as a listener. So, there’s a few chord voicings that are maybe a little more sophisticated than I’ve been able to pull out in the past. I find that pretty exciting.
Are you planning to do live streams?
Yeah, I think I probably will. I probably won’t do it as a band, but I’ll probably do something. I love the idea of live streaming, and I think it is a really useful thing and so valuable at this moment. I hate how they look and sound. So, if I can figure out a way to get it to sound good and to look good and to not look disposable, then yeah, I’ll do it. Kind of the mind to do like one record a week or something. Start off with the first one. The next week, this one. It’s a great way to connect with people who are hungry for stuff right now.
