In May, Field Music’s David Brewis brought a ten-piece band to the Howard Assembly Room to perform his new album The Soft Struggles. All-acoustic and jazz-inflected, The Soft Struggles takes one step away from Field Music’s eclectic palette and instead leans into the luminous spontaneity of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and the breathy, string-laden chamber pop of Colin Blunstone’s One Year, with several tracks built around a single day of live recording at Field Music’s studio in Sunderland. The ensemble featured Admiral Fallow’s Sarah Hayes on flute and piano, leading lights of North East jazz, Faye MacCalman and John Pope, on saxophone/clarinet and double bass, strings from regular collaborators The Crude Tarmac Quartet, Alan Hull, award-winning singer Eve Cole and David’s brother Peter on drums.

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