New details emerge on Magnetic Fields record

Having first come to our attention last month, fresh details have emerged of the new Magnetic Fields record.

Distortion, released on the 14th of January through Nonesuch Records, is the band’s eighth album and the follow-up to 2004’s i. Described at the time by frontman Stephin Merritt as “self-consciously soft rock”, the new longplayer departs from i, reportedly holding nothing but “three-minute power-pop songs”.

Which ‘three-minute power-pop songs’? These three-minute power-pop songs:

‘Three-Way’
‘California Girls’
‘Old Fools’
‘Xavier Says’
‘Mr Mistletoe’
‘Please Stop Dancing’
‘Drive On, Driver’
‘Till the Bitter End’
‘I’ll Dream Alone’
‘The Nun’s Litany’
‘Zombie Boy’
‘Courtesans’

Characterised by feedback - “I don’t know if anyone has done feedback piano before,” wonders Merritt – the record aims, apparently, “to sound more like Jesus and Mary Chain than Jesus and Mary Chain”. The first single to be pulled from it will be ‘California Girls’ on the 17th of December.