Album: The Magnetic Fields

Distortion (Nonesuch)

The praise heaped on Stephin Merritt's 1999 release '69 Love Songs' appears to have gone to his head. Since then, there has been, among others, an album, 'i' made up of songs whose titles all begin with the letter "I" (the one that appears to have crept into Merritt's first name, perhaps?). Anyway, this one's called 'Distortion' and it's a tribute to the Jesus and Mary Chain's 'Psychocandy', so think fuzzy wall-of-sound backing music (feedback acoustic piano, apparently) trying to drown out Scott Walker singing surf songs. Is it conceptual art? Pop? Bollocks? Obviously, it's a combination of all three.

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