MONASUNNE - Fields Become Sky

East Anglia, the region of England comprising the present-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, was home between the sixth and eighth centuries AD to one of the most powerful early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. British violinist and composer Lara Agar has long been based in London, while sound artist, composer and musicologist Louis d'Heudières, born in France, now lives in Hamburg — yet both spent their childhoods in that rural land stretching along the North Sea. In giving life to the Monasunne project, of which this "Fields Become Sky" represents the first recorded offspring, they set out to reconnect with the ancestral culture of the Germanic peoples who sowed the seeds of modern English identity in territories previously dominated by the Roman Empire. To do so, the two joined forces to shake the dust of centuries off Old English poetic texts rich in reflections on spirituality, the transience of life and death, and to sing them over a thoroughly sui generis musical landscape: as if situated in an alternate eon, the sounds of their compositions seem at first to emanate from remote millennia, only to appear, a moment later, to spring from futuristic machines.

If these juxtapositions weren't already enough to convey the originality of "Fields Become Sky", a further coup de théâtre awaits the listener right from the opening track. After aphasic synthesizers and stammering violin, two-thirds of the way through "Wundrian" we witness the coagulation of a swarm of dissonant strings and digital basses, over which an alien voice soars in autotune. This reveals one of Agar and d'Heudières' most dazzling insights: taking one of the most overused devices of pop music of the last twenty-five years and turning it into a tool of estrangement, used to suggest mediumistic invocations from unknown eras.

From here on, the parade of surprises doesn't let up. "Cnidae" launches out-of-tune harpsichords over tingling metallic rattles and slithering keyboards, while recitatives à la Laurie Anderson are disrupted by vocal cut-ups born of the ASMR practices of Felicia Atkinson. As soon as the joined male and female voices rise above the subterranean heartbeat pulse of "Even Now My Heart Journeys Beyond Its Confines", the union of Nordic phonemes and ritual pacing evokes the glacial ferocity of siblings Olof and Karin Dreijer (better known as The Knife) in the most abstract moments of "Shaking The Habitual". And yet, a more hieratic posture, robotic counterpoints and glitch interference remind us that the nature of the music contained here is something else entirely.

In the alienating lied of “Under Heaven,” the violin, having struggled free of computerised quicksand, even manages to conjure up recognisable melodic phrases, but “Changeling” once again strips away every point of reference: sliding precariously down slippery microtonal inclines, the dehumanised soliloquies of the epochal opening two tracks of “Kid A” are transformed into free-jazz solos, before a mournful synthetic organ is left alone to survey the lunar surface. It then falls to “Ever May You Fade” to stage a duet between strings and hissing static, through which the voice attempts to intone a lullaby, playing with its own distorted shadow and with gelatinous music boxes.

We thus arrive at the concluding astral journey, running over nine minutes, of “Bear Must Haunt The Heath, Dart Be Held In Hand.” An introduction entrusted to a terrifying reverse vortex inexorably sucks us back towards a past that seems even more distant than the one the album's lyrics come from: as a Celtic dawn of strings emerges, we realise we've been pulled back far further than the Anglo-Saxons, far further than the Romans; and when a shamanic chant distorted by electronics is added, we're carried back even further in time, to muse on Neolithic nights under starlight, perhaps in the presence of the megaliths of Stonehenge. It all fades out, first into a long symphony of drones, then into the rusty background noise of drifting synthesizers. What reference points can a listener steeped in rock and psychedelia cling to amid this primordial regression? Perhaps to the Ligeti popularised in the hippie era by the famous closing sequence of Kubrick's Odyssey, or to the more hermetic scores of Rachel's.

In recent times, perhaps only Roly Porter's “Kistvaen” has attempted an undertaking of comparable scope. But whereas the Bristol-based former dubstep pioneer encases sepulchral prehistoric laments within colossal dark-ambient structures, Agar and d'Heudières achieve, with admirable concision (little more than thirty minutes in total), a form of timeless art-song, where the Middle Ages and science fiction touch in an impossible twist. Leaving us, listen after listen, intoxicated with sacred disbelief.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

11/12/2025