The Field

Strange Brew presents...

The Field (Kompakt / Studio Barnhus) LIVE - AV Show
+ Xesa

**HYBRID SEATED / STANDING SHOW - 60 SEATS AVAILABLE FIRST COME FIRST SERVED**

Wednesday 18th November

7pm - 10pm
Ages: No age restrictions (under 18s accompanied by a 21+ adult)

The Field (Kompakt / Studio Barnhus, Sweden)

Across the past six albums for Kompakt, Axel Willner has steadily refined and expanded the singular musical language of The Field, transforming the hypnotic repetition of minimal techno into something deeply melodic, atmospheric and emotionally charged. His acclaimed 2007 debut, From Here We Go Sublime, established the blueprint, weaving fragments of familiar melodies into endlessly cycling patterns that blurred the boundaries between ambient, techno and shoegaze. With Yesterday and Today (2009), Willner introduced live instrumentation and a more organic dimension to his sound, a development carried further on Looping State of Mind (2011), where warm, dub-inflected grooves and intricate layers of instrumentation gave his looping compositions a newfound physicality. Cupid’s Head (2013) marked a darker, more introspective turn, returning to a largely solo approach and sharpening the tension between repetition, texture and rhythm. On The Follower (2016), Willner explored a more rugged, driving sound, balancing mechanical precision with shadowy drones and subtle experimentation. Infinite Moment (2018) opened up a more expansive and contemplative landscape, exchanging some of the urgency of his earlier work for slower rhythms, luminous synthesizers and a pervasive sense of melancholy tempered by hope.

Eight years after Infinite Moment, Axel Willner re-emerges as The Field with Now You Exist, his seventh full- length release, a five-track release on Stockholm’s Studio Barnhus that signals both a return and a fresh beginning. Released in May 2026, the record revisits the looping structures while allowing a looser, more organic sensibility to emerge. However it feels less like an attempt to recreate the past and more like a rediscovery of what made his music so compelling in the first place and the atmosphere is more vulnerable, more human and more willing to leave its edges unfinished. After years away from the project, Willner returns not with a grand declaration, but with a quietly affirmative statement of existence, connection and the possibility of beginning again.

Xesa (Principe Records, Portugal)

XEXA is a multidisciplinary Afro-futurist Portuguese artist with São Tomense ancestry based in London. Her work reflects the exploration of sounds, making a hybrid of traditional African rhythms with synthesizers, sound design and vocals.

She graduated in Jewellery from António Arroio, Lisbon and Sonic Arts from Guildhall School Of Music and Drama, London. XEXA released her gorgeous debut LP ‘Vibrações de Prata’ in 2023 on Príncipe and has composed music for the British Music Collection, CMMAS, Lagos Art Biennale, Culturgest and ModaLisboa. Her live concerts in Europe have included Berghain Halle, The White Hotel, Nuits Sonores Brussels, Sónar Lisboa, Milan Design Week, Casa del Jazz Roma, Kelman Duran's residency at Cafe Oto, and Primavera Sound Barcelona. In Seoul, in 2024, she had a three-day residency performing immersed in a transfixional installation at Kia's exhibition “Opposites United: Intersections Beyond Boundaries” at SPACE S1. In Lisbon, in 2025, she presented the sound installation ‘Síncopes’ at CAM Gulbenkian, based on a collective creation project with researcher and sociologist Cristina Roldão, and stage director and actress Zia Soares. The project and piece were inspired by black women who lived (in) the city of Lisbon in the early 20th century. The new album ‘Kissom’ was released late 2025, "a brilliant, unexpected tilt into writhing, syrupy kizomba rhythms and smudged, vaulted chamber music, uncannily comparable to something like Arthur Russell or This Mortal Coil, supplying genuine WTAF moments of ingenuity throughout = fully our thing. A definitive AOTY shortlister.​" Boomkat dixit