Stephin Merritt - Obscurities

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 12 / 10 / 2011

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It’s pretty hard to keep up with all the projects of Stephin Merritt. First of all, we have the Magnetic Fields, which I guess is his “main band”, but there are also the 6ths, the Gothic Arches, the Future Bible Heroes, his various show tunes and soundtrack songs… Well, I guess I have made my point by now. And, being a very copious man, there are a lot of obscure releases from 1992 up until now that most fans have never even heard of, hence this new release from Merge. Here we are treated to fourteen… well… obscurities, pulled from singles and compilations, featuring songs by most of Merritt’s different bands and projects (except the Future Bible Heroes), and of course some unreleased ones, too. The first song, ‘Forever and a Day’, is a lovely little ukuleke-based song, recorded for the unfinished science fiction musical ‘The Song from Venus’, written by Stephin and his friend Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snickett), and then we are thrown into Magnetic Fields-land with some rare, early singles, like ‘Rats in the Garbage of the Western World’ (the B-side on the ‘All the Umbrellas in London’ single), the synth-based 1998 single version of ‘I Don’t Believe You’ (which was later re-recorded for their 2004 album ‘I’) and ‘Beach-a-Boop-Boop’ (the B-side on the second ever Magnetic Fields single, ‘Long Vermont Roads’, from 1992), a song that shows that Merritt must have been a big Beat Happening fan at the time. Among the other treats are two alternative versions of previously released songs, ‘Take Ecstasy with Me’ and ‘Plant White Roses’, here presented with the original vocals by Susan Anway, an early band member. All in all I must say that this is a great compilation, and it’s nice to hear some of these early recordings that I have only read of earlier. And honestly, I just have to admire a man that names a song ‘You are Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home’ (a song that was written for the audio book version of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Coraline’).

Track Listing:-

1 Forever And A Day
2 Rats In The Garbage Of The Western World
3 I Don't Believe You
4 Plant White Roses
5 Rot In The Sun
6 The Sun And The Sea And The Sky
7 Yet Another Girl
8 Scream (Till You Make The Scene)
9 The Song From Venus
10 Beach-A-Boop-Boop
11 When I'm Not Looking, You're Not There
12 Take Ecstasy With Me
13 When You're Young And In Love
14 You Are Not My Mother And I Want To Go Home

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