Are You With Me is my first independent release since 2010’s Lightfields, and was released in December 2013. It was released as a free single via Bandcamp, and is also available via iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and most other on-line retailers. The stems were also released under a CC BY-NC-SA licence alongside the single for remixing. You can download the stems directly from here, via Soundcloud, or as a .torrent courtesy of Mininova.
Featuring two very different takes on the same material, “Are You With Me” showcases two distinct sides of Fielding’s compositional style.
The original mix fuses Fielding’s signature atmospherics with a dark groove, which – together with some huge vocals and a warm melodic flourish – provide a unique exploration into an evocative progressive house style.
The soundtrack edit strips back the original mix in a style reminiscent of Fielding’s previous work on the album “And All Is As It Should Be”. Rebuilding the track from the ground up with a strong organic focus, the soundtrack edit is a showcase for Fielding’s affinity toward deeply emotive ambient music and soundscapes.
Rounding off the single is an instrumental version of the original mix, shifting the focus away from the vocals and back to the intricate attention to detail found in the electronic instrumentation & production throughout the original mix.
Are You With Me was originally written towards the beginning of 2013, prior to the release of Icarus. I was juggling a lot of ideas back then, and I was already toying with ideas related to album 4. Alas, Are You With Me was a one-off and, although I was very happy with it as a song, it didn’t really fit with anything else I was writing throughout the rest of the year. Although album 4 still remained a distant idea, I was happy with Are You With Me, but it didn’t seem to fit with anything else I had been working on throughout the rest of 2013. It was a shame, as I was incredibly happy with how the song had turned out.
By November 2013, I decided that I wanted to do something with it. Still realising that it didn’t fit with any of my other more recent works, I decided it would be best to release it as a single. Despite sending it to a few labels, nobody seemed particularly interested and I decided to go back to what I knew best – releasing the music that I was personally proud of independently. Having said that, I’ve never been a huge fan of singles as a distribution format so I figured I’d try something a bit different out.
Taking a cue from my earlier release, From Out Of Nowhere, I decided to release Are You With Me as a free single… but I wanted to release something alongside it. From Out Of Nowhere was a free single/EP backed up with remixes by musicians I highly respect. I had been wanting to re-visit the ground previously explored by And All Is As It Should Be, so I decided to re-work the original song into a much more cinematic “soundtrack edit”, which I also decided to release alongside the original mix. Despite this, I still felt that I could do better… I wanted to be able to stand by this release and be genuinely happy with it, and – being as it was a single release – I figured I’d try something a bit different out. I didn’t really have time to release the stems to remixers to meet my own self-imposed December deadline, so I started thinking… if I’m going to be releasing this single for free as it is, why not also include the stems for musicians to re-work? So, that’s exactly what I did.
As I mentioned, I’m not a big fan of singles – having said that, I’m incredibly happy with how this has turned out. It’s been a long time since I went the independent route, and I really hope that you enjoy this release as much as I did putting it together. It’s re-invigorated my appreciation for releasing music independently, and it’s got me thinking a lot about what I’ll be doing with my next big release.