his mother says he has boring percussion

Check out Pitchfork's latest interview with Stephin Merrit.

We sat down with the irascible Magnetic Fields leader to discuss Chinese opera, technology and songwriting, the theatricality of pop music, and his extraordinary work ethic.

He mentions his mother more in this interview than any other I've read. There is a lot of technical music-making talk that you might understand more than I did, but the sections on writing Chinese opera to accomodate tonality are fairly interesting. The funniest part is when Stephin compares himself to more or less "wordy" pop artists. "I suppose that I am less wordy than Madonna," I think he says.


Also in the last few days, I've been listening to tracks from my favorite little elven harpist,Joanna Newsom's, album to be released in November, Ys, forthcoming on Drag City. More on that later in the week.