Field Mouse: Hold Still Life

Album release: “Hold Still Life” by Field Mouse
Release date: 22 July 2014
Label: Topshelf Records
Listen: on official Field Mouse website 

A make-your-own CD recording booth was privy to Rachel Browne’s first recording in 1999, a cover of No Doubt’s “Just a Girl”. It would be another many years before she enrolled at SUNY Purchase, where she majored in music composition and met Andrew Futral, a producer and musician. The two began collaborating musically and in 2010 Field Mouse was officially formed. Eventually they expanded into a four piece, with the addition of Saysha Heinzman on bass and Tim McCoy on drums.

A mix of dreamy reverb-tinged guitars and synthesizers, Field Mouse blends the hard edges of indie rock with the warmer stylings of dream pop and shoegaze. Their songs lure you in with saccharine melodies and soothing vocals, and turn on you without warning with biting lyrics and a thick layered wall of fuzz guitar. It’s a blend Browne and Futral have spent years working to perfect, and it shows in their live performances and recordings. The upcoming LP, co-produced by Futral and Browne, marks Field Mouse’s first full-length. The album was recorded at Seaside Lounge, Brooklyn & Let Em In, Brooklyn and mixed by Kyle Gilbride (Swearin’, Waxahatchee, Upset).

The band released their first 7” single in February 2012, You Guys Are Gonna Wake Up My Mom, on Small Plates Records. This was followed in October 2012 with another 7” release, How Do You Know, through Lefse. Field Mouse was eventually rounded out with the addition of Saysha Heinzman on bass and Tim McCoy on drums, and in Spring of 2013 the band embarked on a six-week tour supporting Laura Stevenson as she played across the U.S.

Upon their return from tour the band wasted no time arranging their album. Inspired by burgeoning adulthood, social overload and isolation, life in New York, and the realization that life is going by with a terrifying swiftness (plus a handful of breakup songs to boot), the band wrote and recorded their album in late 2013. It marks the first full-length album that’s been written and released as a full band.

Writing and performing as much as possible, Field Mouse shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, and hopefully will be coming to your town. Just don’t expect any covers of “Just a Girl.”