'Realism' - The Magnetic Fields return

Jesus, I hate November. Damp, wet, cold and, this being Ireland, damp again. It's usually a quiet time for new releases and the month in which the ubiquitous deluge of Best Ofs and Greatest Hits are unleashed upon a market hungry for stocking fillers. So the news that The Magnetic Fields are ready to release their eighth studio album in January offers some hope that the darkness will lift. It's been 10 years now since the almost preposterously great '69 Love Songs' - a decade in which Stephin Merritt took 5 years to record the irritating whimsy of 'i' and a further 4 years before the underwhelming 'Distortion' saw the light of day.
And so, long overdue then, a wonderful Magnetic Fields album beckons on January 26th and, no doubt, some live dates to follow later in the year.

Realism:

01 You Must Be Out of Your Mind
02 Interlude
03 We Are Having a Hootenanny
04 I Don't Know What to Say
05 The Dolls' Tea Party
06 Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree
07 Walk a Lonely Road
08 Always Already Gone
09 Seduced and Abandoned
10 Better Things
11 Painted Flower
12 The Dada Polka
13 From a Sinking Boat