The Magnetic Fields – Quickies (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:53 minutes | 504 MB | Genre: Alternative Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch
Is there such a thing as being too prolific or having too much to say? Stephin Merritt, one of popular music’s true eccentrics, is also one of its most copious songwriters. Over the years, in side projects like The 6ths, The Gothic Archies and Future Bible Heroes, as well as his main band, The Magnetic Fields, Merritt has spun his own wonderfully ornate and populous creative universe, one that has often expressed itself in massive multi-song, multi-volume epics. While he may never again equal the massive chunk of creativity of the exceptional 69 Love Songs (1999), Merritt did give it an equally compelling run for its money with his last outing, 50 Song Memoir (2017).
Read more
The Magnetic Fields – 50 Song Memoir (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:30:58 minutes | 1,62 GB | Genre: Alternative Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch
Merritt began recording on his 50th birthday: February 9, 2015. Unlike his previous work, the lyrics on 50 Song Memoir are nonfiction—in Merritt’s words, “a mix of autobiography (bedbugs, Buddhism, buggery) and documentary (hippies, Hollywood, hyperacusis).” As he says in the album’s liner note interview with his friend, the author Daniel Handler, “I am the least autobiographical person you are likely to meet. I will probably not write any more true songs after this than I did before, but it’s been interesting working on it.” In addition to his vocals on all 50 songs, Merritt plays more than 100 instruments on 50 Song Memoir, ranging from ukulele to piano to drum machine to abacus. In concert, the music will be played and sung by a newly expanded Magnetic Fields septet in a stage set featuring 50 years of artifacts both musical (vintage computers, reel-to-reel tape decks, newly invented instruments), and decorative (tiki bar, shag carpet, vintage magazines for the perusal of idle musicians). The seven performers each play seven different instruments, either traditional (cello, charango, clavichord) or invented in the last 50 years (Slinky guitar, Swarmatron, synthesizer). The stage extravaganza will be directed by the award-winning Jose Zayas (Love in the Time of Cholera, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter).
Read more