We’ve covered a couple of releases by Field Medic, aka San Francisco’s Kevin Patrick, in the past year. On his last two releases, Light is Gone and Me, My Gibberish and the Moon, Field Medic made music that could be labelled “bedroom pop” and could be labeled “folk” and in reality existed in a plane of its own, a strange dimension in the Venn diagram-style overlap between genres. Although all that musing comes to naught upon pressing play on his latest release, the imaginatively (and lengthily) titled that beer called becks reminds me of a haiku i wrote. Opening song, ‘POWERFUL LOVE’ is a lo-fi rock song, all drum machine beats and tales of not going to bed and having a good time (“i gotta headache / but i’m glad that i stayed up late”). It’s fun and kind of catchy and just rough enough around the edges, possessing a reassuringly DIY feel. The lyrics also contain the haiku referenced in the EP’s title, capturing an epiphanic moment with a bottle of beer: “my beverage of choice / clearly resembles the face / of powerful love.” But worry not, Field Medic still comes with heart securely on sleeve. ‘like a feather or a pawprint’ is more like previous Field Medic releases, an acoustic love song with crooning vocals and sentimental lyrics:
“like a feather or a pawprint
your spirit speaks to me of kinship
the only love that i believe in
you’re a golden railroad
shooting thru me like starlight
your name i whisper
& it sounds like music
it sounds like windchimes”
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‘OTL’ is all acoustic guitar and mouth organ and lyrics about the things people do to find that special someone. You know, like wearing weird clothes and reading Murakami and taking percocet at parties, buying supermarket sushi and reading in libraries and drinking on church steps at twilight. ‘ur the 1 4 me’ is another slow and acoustic song, in which the one true love has been found, “feels like new years day when we kiss / feels like new years day when we talk”, before ‘not a normal boy’ closes the EP with something that almost sounds like Father John Misty’s brand of addled romance.
“i’m not a normal boy
i need an abnormal girl
you’re in me like a prayer
you hold me like a spell
you’re supernatural”
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You can get that beer called becks reminds me of a haiku i wrote on cassette via Sunroom Recordz, or as a name-you-price download via the Field Medic Bandcamp page.
