The Field Essentials

Sweden's Axel Willner fused Kompakt's ambient and techno inclinations on his debut album for the label, stretching loops of pop and R&B samples (he was surely the first Kompakt artist to sample Lionel Richie!) into yearning, hypnotic tracks on the cusp between club and comedown. Beginning with 2007's From Here We Go Sublime, he increasingly folded in elements of shoegaze and Krautrock, and '11's Looping State of Mind was a full-band affair. By '13's Cupid's Head, The Field was a solo project again, but his loops had never sounded bigger or more intense.