The ninth album in Stuart Hyatt's Field Works series, Cedars, arrives March 5 via Temporary Residence Ltd (pre-order). The description for Field Works, and this album in particular, reads:
The world is a recording studio where people, places, and things become the instruments. Stuart Hyatt has spent the last decade recording these sounds and arranging them into uniquely site-responsive music. Working under the Field Works name, Hyatt has curated and produced work with a remarkable group of contributing artists, writers, and musicians. Albums are created in collaboration with scientists and released in conjunction with museum exhibitions, books, and site-based performances that investigate our complicated relationship with the natural world.
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The mystifying 9th album in the Field Works series, Cedars combines cosmic Americana with Western ambient and Middle Eastern influences. Delicate layers of pedal steel, banjo, oud, and hurdy-gurdy float atop looping guitar drones to create a soothing, atmospheric chamber where folk and electronic music coalesce. Set to Arabic and English poetry, the song cycle examines some of Earth’s most iconic and ancient forests, revealing our complicated relationship with the natural world.
For this special dual-language release, Field Works producer Stuart Hyatt has assembled a supergroup of musicians, poets, and artists. The album is narrated by Youmna Saba and H.C. McEntire. Instrumentalists include Marisa Anderson, Fadi Tabbal, Dena El Saffar, Danny Paul Grody, Bob Hoffnar, Tomás Lozano, Nathan Bowles, Alex Roldan, Youmna Saba, and Stuart Hyatt. Renowned illustrator María Medem brings poems by Todd Fleming Davis and Youmna Saba to life in the accompanying full-color Risograph comic book; and longtime Field Works collaborators PRINTtEXT design the packaging.