The Magnetic Fields

50 Song Memoir

Nonesuch

SINCE Stephin Merritt's five-disc set of year-by-year songcraft to mark his half-century was released earlier this month, the Edinburgh International Festival has announced that he and a Magnetic Fields septet will be performing the entire chronology over two evenings at the King's Theatre at the end of August. Book now, because people will be quoting couplets from this magnum opus, like lines from Monty Python, for years to come. Board the bus, or be irritated beyond measure. As the man says, the work is a mixture of autobiography and documentary, so landmarks in his own life sit alongside milestones in those of everyone else. Enjoy the coming coming of disco in Hustle 76, even although its writer adds that it went past him because he was only ten at the time. Strange that, because at two he was smart enough to note: "We had a cat called Dionysus/Everyday another crisis". Even more astonishing is the musical variety that Merritt brings to the arrangement and performance of all this music, the only common element being his distinctive Phil Oakey meets Neil Hannon baritone. If the modern world was a better place How to Play the Synthesiser (1981) and Me and Fred and Dave and Ted (1993) would be storming up the pop chart in 2017.

Keith Bruce