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Bouncy loops, surfie guitar twangs and sampled poetry: find out which pieces of gear create the dreamy Fieldings sound

Aussie born, NYC based electronic artist Fieldings is known for creating full-bodied dream pop soundscapes with a eclectic mix of gear, surreal effects and floating vocals.

Their latest release was the Fruit EP, a sacred text on life, love and the importance of honesty. Five months down the road, we caught up with Fieldings’ frontwoman Lucinda Hearn to glean some insight into how the five-piece creates their compelling sound.

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With bouncy vocal loops and tasty coastal guitars, there’s no doubt that Fieldings gets a little more creative with gear than your average muso.

SP-404SX

I bought this recently so I could play solo shows with more textural elements.  It’s probably the most fun music toy I’ve ever owned. I tend to make loops in Logic and then pop then on the SD card, but recently I’ve also been noodling with live vocal samples and snippets of poetry.

I found archival audio of Jack Spicer reading Psychoanalysis: An Elergy, and small portions of that have found their way onto the SP, as well as some Michael Ondaatje and field recordings from trips upstate.

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Danelectro 

I sold almost everything I owned before I moved to NYC last year, including my then guitar, a Gretsch. I replaced it with this Danelectro. They’re cheap as fuck, and so great. To be honest, I first considered buying one because I saw Aaron Maine from Porches playing one in this video. The Danelectro tone is so delicious, surfy and twangy, and it’s become central to Fieldings’ live sound.

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Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy

I use this pretty much only in live contexts for making vocal drones. Lately, I’ve been using it with the SP-404 to make weird, bouncy vocal loops using the square modulation.

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Audiotechnica M50s

If these ever break I will buy a pair exactly the same to replace them. They’re wrapped around my ears at least half of every working day (probably more). I don’t have monitors in in my current set-up so I record with these and mix with them as well.

I heard a rumour once that Dr. Dre (despite founding Beats) actually uses M50s. Either way, they’ve been used to demo and/or mix a large number of Fieldings tracks and, as such, are super dear to me.

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Notebook & Pen 

I feel like people increasingly do not listen to lyrics, but my love of writing lyrics is why I started writing songs. I write every morning during the week for anywhere between 10 minutes and a couple of hours.

I’ll either work specifically on a lyric, or write ‘just to write’ and then once I have a few months accumulated go back through my notebook and look for phrases that strike me as particularly honest or unusual and see what direction they takes me in.

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