Stephin Merritt eats the Psychocandy

Of all the artists I would never imagine sounding "more Jesus and Mary Chain than the Jesus and Mary Chain", it would be the Magnetic Fields. But that’s exactly what the Fields’ headmaster Stephin Merritt promises with the band’s new album, Distortion, coming out on Jan. 15, 2008. The Nonesuch blog mentions an article in Uncut which previews the album. I like the Magnetic Fields, and for a time, I bought into the 69 Love Songs hype. Honestly, that album doesn’t have a very good shelf life, and I’m not curious enough to explore the band’s catalog. This album, however, sounds intriguing.

The Nonesuch blog has been extraordinarily chatty this fall. In September, the blog had all of two posts. The following month, the floodgates opened. Sadly, I’m not terribly interested in a lot of the stuff that’s been on Nonesuch’s recent release schedule.

But I like the fact the blog seems a lot more communicative. Before last month, it just seemed to exist for the sake of being some sort of web presence.