The Field

Eight years on, the Swedish producer behind some of Kompakt’s most loved records returns with a quiet, hypnotic new chapter in ambient techno.

As The Field, Axel Willner turns fragments of familiar melodies into long, slowly shifting tracks that edge towards shoegaze. He was working in a Stockholm off licence when his debut From Here We Go Sublime came out in 2007, and Resident Advisor now ranks it in its top 15 electronic records of the century.

His seventh album and first away from Kompakt, Now You Exist came out in May on Stockholm’s Studio Barnhus, co-founded by Axel Boman and Kornél Kovács. Slowly unfolding chords and accumulating harmonies carry its five long tracks, joined by a tender vocal and a looser, more organic groove.