On the final night of SXSW, Des Moines folk duo Field Division gave a preview of the mellow, ’70s-inspired tunes off of their upcoming debut Dark Matter Dreams to the crowd at The Parish on Saturday night for a showcase put on by their label Bella Union that also featured Tiny Ruins, Xylouris White, and Ezra Furman.
Singer Evelyn Taylor described her musical partner Nicholas Frampton as a one man band at one point as he paused to deal with an issue with his guitar. “We have a band actually,” he added. “They live in Texas – Denton.” Someone in the crowd responded by shouting out that Denton was only 300 miles away. “Yeah, they’re all like, dads and stuff. I’m not a dad, I don’t know how that is.”
As it turns out, this band of dads he was speaking of happens to be members of Midlake, which immediately boosted my opinion of Field Division. The songs sounded good in the live duo incarnation, but I can only imagine that having Midlake sprinkle some of their sonic magic onto the recordings would make it sound even better. I guess we can find out for sure once the album comes out in a few months.
Dark Matter Dreams is out June 22 on Bella Union.