New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The Magnetic Fields' new album, Quickies, which was released digitally earlier this month, is now available in a five 7" vinyl box set. Take a quick look inside in the unboxing video below, and head to the you favorite local record store's online shop, Top40-Charts Store, Bandcamp, and Amazon to pick up a copy today. The album is twenty-eight new short songs by Stephin Merritt, ranging in length from thirteen seconds to two minutes and thirty-five seconds, performed by Merritt and band members Sam Davol, Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and John Woo, along with longtime friends and collaborators Chris Ewen,
Daniel Handler, and Pinky Weitzman. A single CD version is available outside the US now and will be in the US June 19.
"Miniature gems," says the Guardian. "As well as brevity, it's Merritt's way with a lyric that makes the songs on Quickies extraordinary."
"A vibrant new collection of pocket-sized observations," says New York magazine, "the new album packs quite a wallop for its diminutive stature."
"I am just blow away at how consistently share and funny and wise their songs continue to be so deep into their career," says NPR Music's
Robin Hilton on All Songs Considered. His colleague Ann Powers concurs: "I think it really works because ... that guy, and this band, can get so much into 45 seconds. It's just astounding." As does co-host Stephen Thompson: "It's not a novelty record. He still gets at truths, and captures desires, and feelings, and sensations of debauchery."
The Magnetic Fields celebrate their new release with special residencies at intimate City Winery venues in seven cities—Atlanta, Chicago, Nashville, Boston, New York, Washington, and Philadelphia—in January and February of 2021.
Merritt explains his thinking behind the Quickies concept: "I've been reading a lot of very short fiction, and I enjoyed writing 101 Two-Letter Words, the poetry book about the shortest words you can use in Scrabble. And I've been listening to a lot of French baroque harpsichord music. Harpsichord doesn't lend itself to languor. So I've been thinking about one instrument at a time, playing for about a minute or so and then stopping, and I've been thinking of narratives that are only a few lines long.
"Also, I had been using a lot of small notebooks, so when I reach the bottom of the page, I've only gone a short way. Now that I'm working on a different album, I'm enforcing a large notebook rule so that I don't do Quickies twice in a row."
Quickies features Merritt and other Magnetic Fields band members Sam Davol, Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and John Woo. They are joined by longtime friends and collaborators Chris Ewen,
Daniel Handler, and Pinky Weitzman.
To date, Stephin Merritt has written and recorded twelve Magnetic Fields albums, including the beloved 69 Love Songs and the 2017 critically acclaimed Nonesuch box set, 50 Song Memoir, which chronicled the first fifty years of the songwriter's life with one song per year. New York magazine called the box set "a celebration of Merritt's sky-high range as a writer and a player, through the exploration of the circumstances that helped cultivate it … a delightful flip through the untold back pages of one of rock's most singular voices, and, all in all, the best damned Magnetic Fields album in the last ten years." Merritt has also composed original music and lyrics for several music theater pieces, including an off-Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman's novel Coraline, for which he received an Obie Award. In 2014, Merritt composed songs and background music for the first musical episode of public radio's This American Life. Stephin Merritt also releases albums under the band names the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and
Future Bible Heroes.
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS CITY WINERY RESIDENCIES
Jan 17-20 Chicago
Jan 22 Nashville
Jan 24&25 Atlanta
Jan 27-29 Boston
Jan 31-Feb 3 New York City
Feb 5-7 Philadelphia
Feb 9-11 Washington, DC
