Sam Davol (left) and Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields Thursday at Somerville Theatre.
(Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff)
Music review
SOMERVILLE - Attending a Magnetic Fields concert on Valentine's Day appeals to a certain subset of lovers. They're a clear-eyed bunch, experienced in the vagaries of romance but fortified with a twisted sense of humor. They understand that a dramatic recitation of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is a real mood-setter (courtesy of openers Interstellar Radio Company). Poe's story about a guilt-ravaged man obsessed with the sound of his victim's beating heart might as well be the plot of a Stephin Merritt song. All told, it was a night of beautifully made art and barbarous good humor.
Merritt, who has traded his ukulele for a bazouki, led his band through two hours of tragic, comic love songs at the Somerville Theatre Thursday night. The Magnetic Fields are touring in support of "Distortion," an album drenched top to bottom in feedback. But Merritt suffers from hyperacusis in his left ear, which makes him sensitive to loud sounds, and the squealing and buzzing that are the very conceptual basis of the Magnetic Fields' new music were absent. It was beyond absent.
The band recast those noisy nuggets as cosmically hushed chamber-pop, and most of the songs - the sexually loaded pep cheer "Three-Way," the plain Jane's anthem "California Girls," and "Zombie Boy," about the conveniences of necrophilia - made the leap from fuzzed-up rocker to elegant gem intact. Only "Too Drunk to Dream," a zippy novelty tune that requires a crude coat of grime to make musical sense, suffered in the translation.
Shirley Simms, a wonderful and plaintive pop singer who handles half of the tracks on "Distortion," alternated lead vocals with Merritt - a dour, diminutive vision in khaki - and pianist/cohost Claudia Gonson, whose droll banter with Merritt made the evening feel like an indie variety show.
The band, which also includes cellist Sam Davol and John Woo on acoustic guitar, cherry-picked from Merritt's various projects: the Gothic Archies, Future Bible Heroes, and the 6ths. Each one, thanks to Merritt's one-track mind, was dementedly apropos of the holiday, from the show-opener, "No One Will Ever Love You," to the wistful closer, "Grand Canyon."
Merritt scoured the bottom of his register and his soul on "Epitaph for My Heart," and Gonson resurrected "All Dressed Up in Dreams" from the first 6ths album. She noted that former Bostonian Mary Timony sang on the original recording, prompting Merritt, whose stage manner is best described as contained surliness, to comment that "no one stays in Boston very long." And so it went.
It's a testament to Merritt's songwriting that the material survived the show's unwavering constancy. The same delicate arrangements were given to "Crows," a child's ditty from "The Tragic Treasury: Songs From a Series of Unfortunate Events," and "The Nun's Litany," a sister's erotic wish list. But the chord changes were perfect, the words unmatched. "If you ever loved me let me know/ As you turn to go," he sang near the show's end.
In Merritt's world, the end is always near. But for world-weary romantics with an appetite for the truth, the Magnetic Fields delivered a sweet valentine.
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. For more on music, go to boston.com/ae/ music/blog.
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