KEEPING up with Manhattan's Stephen Merritt is like trying to stay with the pounding pace of Paula Radcliffe. Prolific doesn't tell half the story.
Merritt is The Magnetic Fields, whose 1999 triple-decker 69 Love Songs is soon to be followed up by a spring album.
Merritt is also The 6ths, a collective project for which he cherry-picks celebrity guests and friends to sing yet more of his archly witty, wryly observant compositions.
You want more? Merritt has just finished work on the Lincoln Centre production of Chinese opera The Orphan Zhao.
More still? He also knocks off the occasional film soundtrack.
In 2002, there were abstract noodles and a quartet of proper songs for the obscure Eban & Charley. Now, the latest in the order of Merritt is Pieces Of April, ten vignettes of melody-laden melancholia for Peter Hedges's new arthouse movie (released on February 20).
Half are drawn from the cream of his back catalogue; creamier still are five new pieces, among them The Magnetic Fields' utterly lovely All I Want To Know and drunkenly flirtatious Stray With Me and Merritt's lonesome and delicate One April Day.
Updated: 09:19 Thursday, February 05, 2004
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