Jacob Augustine, Field Guides

Jacob Augustine is an experimental folk musician from the Northern woods of Maine. He has lived all over the country, crisscrossing the United States performing for over a decade in various projects. While living in California in 2008 he recorded his first full-length album entitled Harmonia, which was then released in early 2009, just months after moving back to Maine to live in the Portland area. Harmonia was named a Top Ten Album of the Year by The Portland Phoenix and the single "High Water" received airplay on radio stations across the country.

In the months following Harmonia's release, Jacob would gather musicians from across Portland's vastly rich music community to perform live, assembling one of the most ferocious and emotionally intense acts to come out of New England in some time. That band, called Jacob and the House Of Fire, toured all over the Northeast performing at some of the regions largest festivals and most renowned venues (KahBang Music Festival (Bangor, ME), Oktoberfest in Harvard Sq. (Cambridge, MA), Common Ground Festival (Unity, ME) and the State Theatre and Port City Music Hall (Portland, ME). However during the Winter of 2011 the band chose to move forward with their own individual projects.

Jacob, who at the time had nearly finished one full-length record, Frontier, featuring members of the House Of Fire, began working on recording two other albums. The Original Love was another full-length, that like Frontier, he engineered and recorded himself in various hallways, bedrooms, and living rooms in and around Portland, as well as in an old family cabin in Northern Maine. With the help of Frank Hopkins he also recorded a six song EP entitled Goldyhymns, captured live at Mayo Street Arts Center, an old converted church in Portland. All three albums were released digitally in late October of 2011, on Jacob's bandcamp site.

In July of 2012, Jacob released the Bikini Island EP, comprised of 4 songs that he had written and recorded during the The Original Love sessions. Jacob, in talking about Bikini Island says, "the EP is a collection of songs I recorded in the summer of 2011 in the same sessions of seclusion as "The Original Love". They seemed like a such a bizarre excursion from the norm of what I was doing at the time that I didn't release them. They practically made me feel uneasy and I really didn't want anyone to hear them, ever. But, naturally, friends always have a way of persuading a man. This EP is my most out of body experimental jaunt into possible sonic embarrassment yet."


FIELD GUIDES began, as so many misguided things begin, in a bedroom. The bedroom belonged to a boy who wrote some songs about women and bedrooms and mental illness. And plants and animals. FIELD GUIDES have lumberingly moved into the living room. They are a family now, featuring former or current members of Future Wife, BLUSHING, Heliotropes, PEELS, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. There are more songs now about Amelia Earhart and books and buildings. And plants and animals.

FIELD GUIDES sound, according to some, like "noisy pop." Or "tidal, shimmering, and poignant." Or like "that band with the guy and girl from Canada." Or like they're "ripping off Yo La Tengo." They take that last one as a serious compliment.