Initially, I was going to write that I didn’t much like the Magnetic Fields' new album and its attempts at being clever for the sake of being clever.
I was wrong.
““I”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001NNL8O”, contains 14 songs whose titles all begin with the letter ‘I’. It’s one of those albums that grow on me the more I listen to it. It may not have any standout songs, but there are plenty of the morosely witty lyrics that make the Magnetic Fields so unique.
I saw them play live yesterday, their second of two shows in Toronto at Trinity St. Paul — a United church that plays host to Tafelmusik and other concerts. It somehow seemed like the perfect setting for a Magnetic Field’s show, with their minimalist set of piano, guitar, banjo, cello and ukulele to go with Merritt’s baritone voice. Interspersed with Claudia Gonson and Merritt’s banter about movies and literature involving sad clowns, evil-twinned clowns, and balloons, they gave an fantastic yet expectedly subdued performance.
In addition to the several tracks from “I”, they played a wide selection of older tracks from ““69 Love Songs”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000JY1X”, the ““Pieces of April”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DZTIO” soundtrack, ““Get Lost”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000019O4”, ““House of Tomorrow”:http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000G1IY”, and even Stephen Merritt’s The 6ths. I especially enjoyed their performance of “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!”, which actually got Merritt up off his stool. Inspired by the unusual venue, Gonson strayed from their set list to give an impromptu performance of “Kiss Me Like You Mean It” for their final song of the evening.
I should also mention the superb opening act, Andrew Bird. Immensely talented, Bird combines violin, guitar, xylophone, his unique whistling and voice with creative use of MIDI to put on the best one-man show I’ve seen. If you like the Red House Painters or more recent Radiohead, you should definitely give him a listen.