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Obscurities
CD/LP, Merge Records, August 2011
Obscurities is a collection of Merritt's hard-to-find recordings dating back to his time on Merge Records (1994-99) and prior. The Los Angeles Times hails Merritt as "one of indie-rock's most acclaimed figures" while Pitchfork calls him "smart, thorough, and unerringly precise."
Obscurities features 14 tracks in all, including five previously unreleased songs, all recorded prior to The Magnetic Fields' seminal album 69 Love Songs. Three of the unreleased tracks hail from The Song From Venus, the unfinished science fiction musical written by Merritt and Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snickett. Also included on the record are five songs culled from various Merge-era 7" vinyl singles by The Magnetic Fields, along with one from Merritt's guest vocalist-laden side project the 6ths, one from an audio book, one from the Oh, Merge compilation CD, and a track from a rare K Records cassette-only release.
Among the tracks on Obscurities is The Song From Venus' "Forever and a Day," a solo-acoustic ukulele-based love song reminiscent of 69 Love Songs' "The Book of Love." Also included on Obscurities is "The Sun and the Sea and the Sky," a previously unreleased 69 Love Songs outtake. "This song didn't go on 69 Love Songs because it wasn't actually about romantic love," Merritt points out. The album concludes with "You are not my Mother and I Want to go Home," which originally appeared in the audio book version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline for which Merritt composed the soundtrack.
- Forever and a Day
- Rats in the Garbage of the Western World
- I Don't Believe You (7-inch Version)
- Plant White Roses (Buffalo Rome Version)
- Rot in the Sun
- The Sun and the Sea and the Sky
- Yet Another Girl
- Scream (Till You Make the Scene)
- The Song from Venus
- Beach-a-Boop-Boop
- When I'm Not Looking, You're Not There
- Take Ecstasy with Me (Susan Anway, vocal)
- When You're Young and in Love
- You Are Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home
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CD/LP, Merge Records, August 2011
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CD, Nonesuch, March 2006
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CD, Nonesuch, Nov. 2003
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CD, Merge, Jan. 2002
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