Reviews

A Correction
  • "... proves that he more than deserves to be regarded alongside the likes of Grouper and Boards of Canada as an important artist in the field of rustic, pastoral ambient / electronic music." Beard Rock
  • "...everything on A Correction moves and reacts as one – punches of bass drum send the whole body of instrumentation into deep pulsations, while clouds of ambience wrap themselves tightly around the album’s various beautiful melodic motifs." Rock a Rolla
  •  "...a correction is Elam’s bold excursion into the unknown: the shifting territory of unpredictable tones." A Closer Listen
  • "...relocated sonically and geographically to colder, more isolated climes, and to great effect... spacious, finely textured and slowly unfurling sound revealing nine parts infused with the keening strings of The Boats' Elaine Reynolds rendered to a crackling electronic backdrop." Boomkat
  • "Highly recommended slow burning late night melancholic electronica that makes you wish for cold, still winter nights, a log cabin and snow on the ground." - Norman Records
  • "This is what I imagine life in the middle of nowhere to sound like, where the ebb and flow of nature and the vast openness can play tricks on you, the normally inconsequential sounds you hear are filtered into music and a creeping, floating journey." Nine Hertz
  • "...an acutely detailed work that picks up where its predecessor left off, and continues to expand the crackly, glitch-ruptured palette in subtle yet striking ways. Each piece is richly textured, and steeped in nuanced atmospherics." Whisperin' and Hollerin'
  • "The album is alive with the feel of a new landscape, seasons and feelings translated into music. The result is Fieldhead’s best album yet." Fluid Radio
  • "Elam’s blend of icy textures and unexpected warm undercurrents is subtly beguiling and effortlessly affecting." Liminal
  • "...music evocative of nature and undiscovered places... warped beyond recognition to incongruous but ultimately delightful effect." Leonard's Lair

They Shooks Hands for Hours
  • "...paints atmosphere better than a whole ream of his electronica comtemporaries ever could, creating unhealthy amounts of awe with his string slices and distortion washes..." Rock a Rolla
  • "This debut by Leeds, UK native Paul Elam rolls sixes on all fronts....rather than a collection of loose ideas, They Shook Hands for Hours manages to combine seemingly contrary energies into a compelling fabric." Exclaim
  • "...his music is vast, expansive, dark, and inspiring, perfect for audiophiles who need some contemplative, absorbing electronica to divulge in." The Silent Ballet
  • "This hauntological hip-hop opus is really quite special, and certainly with songs like 'I'm Fond Of Maps' (think Burial, circa 1920) and 'He'd Found The Sea' there's an indication of exciting things to come from this artist. Highly recommended." Boomkat
  • "They Shook Hands For Hours sounds like Merzbow doing a chill-out album. Yes, it is that good - and disturbing. Fieldhead conjures up a variety of soundscapes to lose oneself in, like opening a door and suddenly being swamped by the cut-up soundtracks to late-night films." Die Shellsuit Die
  • "...this Leeds native should find his place in the English underworld of art. All it takes is a little creativity and an abundance of incomparable talent. And Fieldhead is a terrific demonstration of both. Any album that can leave you puzzled, amused, and disturbed all at once is definitely one to be considered renowned and well rounded. Which is exactly what this is." Fensepost
  • "This elegant album communicates integrity and substance in the few seconds it takes to open. The decisive minimalism of the graphics and the carefully dense texture of the music announce a wish to be known and listened to, with an assurance that there will be a lot to hear and nothing dropped carelessly in simply because it can be (9/10)." Whisperin and Hollerin
  • "They Shook Hands For Hours shines with emotions, inscribed by confident melodies and an impression of sensitivity radiated by the whole work... the Englishman delivers music which is expressive, and stands apart from the usual constraints of this style." Autres Directions
  • "Anyone in search of new beat-driven ambient music of the minimalist variety, would do well to give Fieldhead an explore. There is much here to enjoy, with mind expansion into the bargain." God is in the TV

Riser
  • "Clearly, this is the same Fieldhead sound that caused such a stir last year – clever production tricks that make the listener doubt the correct functioning of their own ears – but applied to a very different kind of original source material... There is still, amongst the grainy production and experimental techniques, a defiantly pop sensibility at play in this EP. The tracks are catchy and simple but, with Elam’s production shaping and distorting them, they become something other than pop – they sound like they could fall apart in your hands. I had the opportunity to review the digital version of this EP but there is a real physicality, a real presence, to the Fieldhead sound which is strangely incongruent with contemporary music formats." Fluid Radio
  • "...this release is all that ambient was and should remain to be and its unsettling but dreamy vocals should never experience the indignity of being consigned to any background." Tasty Fanzine
  • "This is an intelligent and interesting work. It’s refreshing. It’s exciting. And it’s simply brilliant." The Steinberg Principle
  • "...quite magical, perhaps suggesting what a Grouper/William Basinski collaboration might end up sounding like." - Boomkat
  • "The core idea behind this collection of tracks may seem to offer little room for scope or differentiation but Elam has excelled in his production duties. Utilising the full range of editing tools he has managed to manipulate what were seemingly simple vocal parts in to fragments of images and tiny worlds to get lost in. This is stuff best enjoyed in a darkened corner with massive headphones through which you can absorb every tiny detail and visualize the labyrinthine metamorphosis of the human voice in to something far more sinister." Sonic Reverie
  • "...'An Arrow' manages to make the voice more like a Hammond organ than anything human, but that's where a lot of the charm of this record lies. In stripping his tools back to a voice and an accompanying synthesier, Fieldhead has found a balance in his brevity. However, whilst Riser is interesting texturally - a think and swarming display of manipulation, tape hiss and frequency - it feels a little trapped by its direction." Rock a Rolla

Crest
  • "Thoughtful music, from the borders of pop music and modern classical music. Four pieces that clock in at some fifteen minutes of sad music. And sad it made me. Not the music as such, but such sweet music could have lasted a bit longer as far as I'm concerned. Much longer. This simply sounded like more! How sad. How great." Vital

Live
  • "...frozen laptop-generated soundscapes that generate a warmth beyond their contents via the twin violins veering off at different baroque angles in the most slow-burningly lovely way possible." The List
  • "...swathes of ambient sounds, emanating from the near darkness... a perfect aural anaesthetic." Whisperin and Hollerin
  • "Low-income housing, skeletal trees and raindrops running down the pane perfectly paired with wistful acoustic guitar loops, building to a climax that recalled Godspeed You! Black Emperor." Discorder