Field Works is a general music concept developed by Indianapolis producer Stuart Hyatt. Starting out in 2018, Hyatt developed the project into a sort of a collective concept, where he invites other artists to chip in and/or perform based on a general idea he comes up with for each of the individual parts of the project, with Cedars being the most recent one, he has come up with nine of them.
So what is the idea behind Cedars? As Hyatt sees it, it should be a combination of “cosmic Americana with Western ambient and Middle Eastern influences.” It might sound far-fetched to some, but it actually works, almost to perfection. On the album, Hyatt actually presents two concepts unified by poetry. The first part is composed of some ethereal ambient combination of electronics and pedal steel guitar, and other instruments combined with Arabic poetry. The second part keeps the the musical elements, but with the accent on the Americana and adds poetry in English.
The thread connecting the two poetry presentation is a song cycle that, as the artists involved say, “examines some of Earth’s most iconic and ancient forests, revealing our complicated relationship with the natural world.”
Just put in written words it might sound disparate and disjointed, but in reality, Cedars turns out to be a brilliantly developed concept that works and actually finds the unifying elements both in different musical concepts, but also in poetic (linguistic) expression of different languages.
For those that actually acquire a physical copy of the album, there is the added pleasure of an accompanying full-color comic book by illustrator María Medem.
