There's something dissatisfying about The Magnetic Fields' 2008 release Distortion. Somehow the songs Stephen Merritt writes don't mesh well with the Jesus & Mary Chain-style production. It almost seems as though the goal was to challenge the accepted notion of distortion=authenticity, which is admirable, but I don't think they pull it off.
Today Pitchfork has a live-in-the-dressing-room clip of Merritt performing one of the album's best songs, sans amp, solo on bouzouki. The Nun's Litany imagines a monastic rethinking her vow of chastity. The clip, which also features a performance of This Little Ukulele, can be found here.
