Magnetic Fields Realism

• You Must Be Out of Your Mind
• Interlude
• We Are Having a Hootenanny
• I Don't Know What to Say
• The Dolls' Tea Party
• Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree
• Walk a Lonely Road
• Always Already Gone
• Seduced and Abandoned
• Better Things
• Painted Flower
• The Dada Polka
• From a Sinking Boat

Realism is considered by frontman Stephen Merritt to be the Magnetic Fields’ companion piece to 2008’s Distortion. Whereas Distortion showcased a much more brash, immediate feel and was recorded in the stairways, hallways, and bathroom of Merritt’s old New York apartment, Realism is a studio acoustic set -- a “variety folk” album (save one track recorded in Merritt’s new, L.A.-based bathroom). Inspired by late-60s and early-70s British folk, it continues to explore the same themes of truth and fiction that Distortion set forth and once again abandons synths, instead employing a battery of acoustic instruments like bouzouki, banjo, cello, violin, accordion, tuba, and tabla drums.

Abstract by Leah Urbom