Description
£48.99 – 5×7″ Boxset
Nonesuch Records release the Magnetic Fields’ Quickies, a set of five vinyl EPs that features twenty-eight new short songs by Stephin Merritt, ranging in length from thirteen seconds to two minutes and thirty-five seconds.
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.
Tracklisting:
- castles of america
- the biggest tits in history
- the day the politicians died
- castle down a dirt road
- bathroom quickie
- my stupid boyfriend
- love gone wrong
- favorite bar
- kill a man a week
- kraftwerk in a blackout
- when she plays the toy piano
- death pact (let’s make a)
- i’ve got a date with jesus
- come, life, shaker life!
- (i want to join a) biker gang
- rock ‘n’ roll guy
- you’ve got a friend in beelzebub
- let’s get drunk again (and get divorced)
- the best cup of coffee in tennessee
- when the brat upstairs got a drum kit
- the price you pay
- the boy in the corner
- song of the ant
- i wish i had fangs and a tail
- evil rhythm
- she says hello
- the little robot girl
- i wish i were a prostitute again