Wisconsin-Based Lush Indie-Rock Duo Foreign Fields Release Their Long-Awaited Magical Full-Length Album ‘What It Cost’

ON FRIDAY, September 13, the Wisconsin-based lush indie-rock duo Foreign Fields are excited to release their long-awaited fourth full-length album, What It Cost. Consisting of Brian Holl and Eric Hillman, the two have spent the last few years actively trying to simplify their lives. Pulling a live band together before they stepped into the recording studio, they shared ideas and sketches of songs in real-time and focused on no longer being precious about their band’s output. The result is What It Cost, the band’s fourth full-length album and a reimagining of all that the band stands for.

Recorded at Hive in Eau Claire, WI, with engineer Brian Joseph (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Volcano Choir), this is their most authentic release to date, with ten newly-formed songs opening up a new chapter of Foreign Fields buoyed by friendship and the power of collaborative spirit; it’s as loose and free as they’ve ever sounded while retaining the emotive shimmer that has always provided the band’s beating heart – something that Brian and Eric were determined not to lose. Bringing in longtime musical companions Nate Babbs (drums) and Nick Morawiecki (guitar), What It Cost explores and then answers what a band-led version of Foreign Fields might sound like. 

Brian shares, “Our goal for this record was to break free from the usual Foreign Fields process—just Eric and me spending hours in a room, perfecting every little detail. This time, we wanted to bring others into the mix and create a more live “band” sound. We also aimed to showcase this collaborative process visually as we released the record.

With that in mind, we booked a weekend trip to Red Wing, Minnesota, last November with an open agenda: capture four songs with the guys who helped shape and record them. The concept for the video for “A Little Longer” came naturally. We wanted it to focus purely on the performance, capturing the vibe of all of us together in one room. So, we put Mitch Buss, the filmmaker behind the Red Wing Sessions videos, in the middle of us and hit record.”

At the beginning of the What It Cost project, Foreign Fields didn’t set out to write a record about love. That realization came later when they stepped back to take a breath when they began to pull this special collection of songs together. Indeed, Eric and Brian are the first to admit that as a whole piece, ˆ is markedly different from what’s come before, that even now, to them, the album feels dizzying and somewhat scattered, that the mood and the light can shift drastically from one song to the next. But, in the end, isn’t that just love encapsulated? Isn’t that what this whole ride so often feels like?

Together, Foreign Fields (Brian Holl and Eric Hillman) have made the most of the past decade, releasing three full-length albums and a further series of EPs and companion pieces while returning to their home state of Wisconsin and retreating to the wilderness to write and record painstakingly. Their all-encompassing 2020 third LP, The Beauty Of Survival, was a lush blurring of folk, ambient, and electronica, preceded by 2016’s Take Cover and 2012’s Anywhere But Where I Am. Foreign Fields saw it then, as they do now, as the end of a chapter, the final part of a trilogy where they found answers to the questions they’d previously posed. 

What It Cost will be available on all streaming platforms here.