Film School

Film School – Field (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:09 minutes | 765 MB | Genre: Indie Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Dreampop, Shoegaze
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © felte

In Rumi’s poem A Great Wagon he writes of a place of total acceptance. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there,” It is a boundless, liminal space where we can release the judgments we make and carry of ourselves, and the comparisons to others. When we think of this field, there is a sense of tranquility that only comes when we are undisturbed by the shadow self and see existence as neither bright nor dim, white nor black. But as lead singer Greg Bertens explains, arriving there is a whole different story. “This is a poem I’ve returned to over the years, and I love the idea of this place, but getting there is life’s journey.” Bertens adds “I think the longing for and elusiveness of this field is a recurring theme in our music.” Field, their first album released on felte, is enveloped by themes of regret, disconnection and frustration but with the space to understand that these feelings are a natural part of the struggle between reconciling the inner and outer self.

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Film School – Bright to Death (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:00 minutes | 452 MB | Genre: Alternative Rock, Shoegaze
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hauskat Records

The Bay Area shoegaze group offer up an early listen of their fifth studio album their first in eight years. With the recent reunions of such canonical figures as My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Ride, shoegaze is unquestionably back. Consequently, so is Film School. With their first album since 2010’s Fission, the San Francisco noisemakers have returned with the perfect thing; Bright to Death is not only a loyal adherent to its genre’s tradition, but also exhibits some of the band’s sharpest work to date.

“When this lineup first came together in the early 2000s, I never thought we’d be doing some of our best work fifteen or so years later,” admits singer and guitarist Greg Bertens. “Our [self-titled] album came out in 2006, when bands like The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand were in full swing. The music landscape was totally different then shoegaze was a bad word. That’s changed.”

With Franz Ferdinand and at least one Stroke back in full swing albeit in entirely different corners of the sandbox Film School have found their stride in a significantly less homogenized era for rock, threading the needle previously framed by “Lectric”’s dark trance and “Sunny Day”’s bright guitars. Bright to Death’s forty-minute run time straddles a middle ground of hazy noise pop driven by a darkwave undercurrent. Check out the album in full below a day before its official release via Hauskat Records.

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