Thanks to Google, it’s easy to find out that Stephen Hawking is British, that Stephen Colbert “rules,” that Stephen King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, that Stephen Dedalus, you know, won’t serve, and that Steve Albini has some sort of grouse-y, smart-ass food blog. But you gotta dig a little deeper if you want to find out about the only man I can think of who spells Stephen with an ‘i’ at the end, even if he doeshappen to be one of the most critically acclaimed American singer/songwriters in the history of the universe. Luckily, here I am to keep you up to speed with my skillful optimizations of such pesky search engine criteria as spelling.
Stephin Merritt, and mastermind behind The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, The Gothic Archies, and everyone’s favorite Volvo ad, is releasing a rarities collection on August 23 via his old home base, Merge Records. In keeping with Merritt’s fine tradition for saying/singing things that are ‘funny, but not really,’ the collection is titled Obscurities, and it includes 14 of Merritt’s most, you know, rare and obscure recordings from his mid-90s Merge days and beyond, five of which are previously unreleased and predate 69 Love Songs (before the release of which I’m pretty sure most of us just assumed he worked at a toll booth). What’s that you say? Still not ‘obscure’ enough for you? Well, what if I were to tell you that three of those five unreleased tracks were culled from The Song from Venus, an unfinished science fiction musical that was co-written by Merritt and that Lemony Snickett guy? A-ha! And what if I further told you that Lemony Snickett is really James Murphy?!!?!? Well, then I’d be lying to you.
Either way, the collection also includes five tracks taken from some old Magnetic Fields Merge 7-inches, one from from his 6ths project, one from a Coraline audio book (I guess), one from a Merge comp, and even an oldie from a K Records casette! In addition, you can check out one of the songs from that failed-musical, “Forever and a Day,” by clicking here or maybe by visiting the Chocolate Grinder if they ever GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER and post it there. Fuck, I hate working here so much.
Obscurities tracklisting:
01. Forever and a Day
02. Rats in the Garbage of the Western World
03. I Don’t Believe You
04. Plant White Roses
05. Rot in the Sun
06. The Sun and the Sea and the Sky
07. Yet Another Girl
08. Scream (‘Till You Make the Scene)
09. 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
• Stephin Merritt: http://www.houseoftomorrow.com
• Merge: http://www.mergerecords.com
