Artist

Blackfield

Formed in Tel Aviv, Israel, 2000 6 studio albums 3 dives so far

Blackfield is what happens when two songwriters who work in different languages, on opposite sides of a continent, decide to meet in the middle and keep it short.

The duo pairs Steven Wilson, the English musician best known for Porcupine Tree, with Aviv Geffen, one of Israel’s most prominent rock artists. It started with a gig. Wilson invited Porcupine Tree to play Israel in 2000, Geffen was the one who got them there, and out of that visit came the idea for a band, Geffen’s idea, in fact.

The brief was deliberate. Wilson has framed Blackfield as the inverse of his main band: where Porcupine Tree stretches out, Blackfield contracts. Short songs. Verse, chorus, done. Melancholic pop with no patience for the long way round.

Geffen is no junior partner in this. At home he is a household name, the son of a celebrated national poet, a musician with a long and pointed history of his own. The two trade vocals and writing, and several Blackfield songs carry Geffen melodies that had a life before the band existed.

The result is a catalog that sounds, on the surface, simple. It rarely is. Two voices, two languages, one set of very economical songs.

Worth knowing

Two songwriters, two languages, one rule: keep it short. Wilson sings most of it in English, but several Blackfield songs are second lives of older Hebrew songs Geffen had already released, carried over and reshaped for a new audience. The simple surface rarely is.