The Magnetic Fields' ambitious triple album, 69 Love Songs, was released in 1999 to critical acclaim. Nick Mirov in a Pitchfork review wrote that "[t]here's only one question that really needs to be asked of 69 Love Songs: is it a brilliant masterpiece or merely very, very good?" More than ten years later, Gnap! Theater Projects brings Austin the workshop version of a theatrical representation of the album, with the full show scheduled to appear in a 2011 run. more ›

Stephin Merritt leads The Magnetic Fields, but it hardly defines him. The prolific and genre-hopping songwriter and arranger also leads the groups The 6ths, The Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes...when he feels like it. In addition, he's writing the music to a Broadway adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novella "Coraline" that is due in 2009. more ›

Stephin Merritt's Magnetic Fields don't get out much tour-wise, but they will be supporting their latest, Distortion, this fall with a short tour. The Paramount will hose NYC's favorite gloomy lovers on October 14, and tickets ($33-36) go on sale July 23. Buy them through gettix.net. more ›

Say you’re drunk. Or, better yet, you just woke up after one of those Mexican Martini nights, so it's one of those mornings where the sun, you’re sure, is already blazing its blaze just beyond your bedroom window, yet you can only spot a squeak of it through the blinds, and that little bit of light is really all you handle. Anything more would send you into full-on fury, but that special kind of fury where you can’t really do anything, because, truly, you feel like shit. more ›

Beirut The Flying Club Cup (4AD) Beirut is Zach Condon, and Zach Condon is right on time. His international folk through every instrument imaginable (except guitar) is rich with cultural consciousness and adventure and is just the reinvigoration the folk, indie, rock and whatever-music scenes need to get over their musical malaise. The resplendent and occasionally haunting sounds of the cello, accordion, violin, mandolin, piano, sax, clarinet, glockenspiel, flugelhorn, trumpet and more ukelele than you... more ›

Robert Wyatt Comicopera (Domino) Best known for his work with Britain's art-rock pioneers Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt has done little aside from create brilliant, truly different pop music since the '60s. Though his career is long, prolific and full of intriguing stories and tragedy, we've most recently been enamored with 2003's Cuckooland, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize. This year's Comicopera is a sort of hysterical (in the laughing and the sad way)... more ›

If you learn nothing else about Brooklyn-based indie rock group Ladybug Transistor and the secrets behind their bittersweet pop, know this: their mothers are really proud. Of the three classic pearls of wisdom from mom - ‘Wait at least an hour to swim after eating,’ ‘Too much TV will rot your brain,’ and ‘Always remember to share.’ - Ladybug Transistor has at least one of those down to a mutually beneficial science. Lending their... more ›