Gently Tender Find The Fields Beneath London On "Staring At Fields"
Written By: Big C
A city can bury its past in concrete, but the ground remembers. Gently Tender follow that thought on Staring At Fields, looking across London toward the landscape its buildings replaced. The idea suits the six-piece’s blend of lush harmonies and pastoral melodies, where folk, punk and soul meet within an indie-rock framework. Those shared influences give the musical home of the natural world becomes part of the band’s creative language as well as its imagery. Sam Fryer’s walks through North London’s green belt shaped the album, turning distance from the city into a different perspective on belonging. The song was the first he began and the last the band finished. Fryer credits his bandmates with rescuing it:
It almost got lost along the way - I gave up on it pretty early on, but the rest of the band refused to let it go. Credit to them it finally fell into place just before we delivered the record.
That persistence carries into This Was Once Fields, out October 16 through TODO Records. The album brings Francesca Brierley and Evie Hilyer-Ziegler into a lineup with Sam Fryer, Pete Mayhew, Will Doyle and Adam Brown. Hilyer-Ziegler contributes violin and flute to the record, broadening the palette around the band’s harmony-led sound.Several voices and instrumental colors serve a shared view of the city. Earlier singles A Mound A Field and Wild In The Uplands explore the same pull between urban life and open countryside. Explore the album and explore the band’s official tour dates to carry that journey beyond the record. Connect with Gently Tender on Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp.
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