I'M NOT SURE how I got a hold of my first Little Wings record but I still have it and listen to it regularly. Light Green Leaves came out on the K label in 2002, and it's one of the few albums that have stayed with me while I've moved around the country and lived in all sorts of ridiculous places. Since then, Little Wings' Kyle Field (San Luis Obispo bred) issued four more records, each reshaping and expounding upon Light Green Leaves-style wispy, folk-pop. It's deeply trippy stuff, with rumbles of noise clattering below country guitars, shuffling drums, and Field's pleasant, high-voiced drawl. It makes sense that Field is a surfer; his music has a breezy, late afternoon seashore feel, with hazy ideas sun baked and mellowed out by hours in the surf. All around, it's a nice, cohesive, comfortable experience. Field, who recently relocated back to California, also draws great psychedelic sketches. I asked him about all of this.

MERCURY: Can you go from drawing to suddenly working on music, and vice versa without much cognitive dissonance?

KYLE FIELD: Yeah, I think I do that pretty frequently. Each becomes a break from the other, and it seems like if I am in "the flow" with one, I might already be there with the other.

What's your workspace like?

It's the living room of our place. I have a table that never needs to be cleared and it is always in some sort of transition. Right now there is a big spool of light blue yarn on it that I've had for like five years, some stumps from the Christmas tree lot by the grocery store, some wine corks sliced up into discs and painted a bit, and business papers.

Did you start surfing before you started to make art or was it the other way around?

I started drawing when I was really young and me and my brother got our first surfboard when I was about 12. My dad was a football coach and we bought it off this football player. It was a twin fin and shaped by a guy named Dennis Lindsay and I think we paid $20 for it. One of the older kids in the neighborhood told us it was a kneeboard, but now I know he was wrong; it was a real surfboard!

Where do you usually surf?

We go down to this little beach out back, just past Leo and Camper's, before Whaler's and County.

Where are you living nowadays?

I am living back at home proverbially and literally. I spent some years of my life wandering and living any place I could for however long, and have gotten back to where I left from.