duggup

I love this new Magnetic Fields album, it’s called “Distortion” and it’s well named. “Three Way” is surrounded by a wall of noise and layers of feedback and “distortion”, although I prefer to think that the distortion is to our idea of what over the top pop music can be. The lyrics are just happy exclamations repeated by male and female voices.

Surprisingly composer and producer Stephin Merritt creates this wonderful wall of sound only using very few instruments. No synths lurking here, he just generates layers of feedback that pervade nearly every aspect of this album.

Michael Hill wrote on their website…

“I wanted to make a record of three-minute pop songs, then they turned into three-minute power-pop songs,” Merritt explains. “The previous Magnetic Fields record had been self-consciously soft rock, with all the songs starting with the letter ‘i.’ The idea here was to make this record quickly and use the same instrumentation on every song. And if I had to use the same instrumentation all the time, what would I want it to sound like? Well, like the first Jesus and Mary Chain album! So I attempted to adapt the sound of Psychocandy to the orch-pop reality of the Magnetic Fields, where we have a pianist and a cellist. And the occasional accordionist.”

Magnetic Fields first came to my notice with their 1999 their 3-disc set, “69 Love Songs.” The album has brought Merritt’s music to the mainstream eye. In addition to Merritt’s singing, “69 Love Songs” also features vocals by pianist Claudia Gonson, as well as three additional singers, LD Beghtol, Dudley Klute, and Shirley Simms. The album also included instrumental contributions of Future Bible Hero Chris Ewen, and novelist Daniel Handler on accordion.

“Distortion” is possibly the best album the band have done. I know a lot of long time fans will possibly disagree but this is just wonderful stuff. Make sure you check out “California Girls” and have the volume at a decent, performance level.

Highly Recommended.

Websites at www.myspace.com/themagneticfields and houseoftomorrow.com/

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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