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For someone like Stephin Merritt, who suffers from such an acute sensitivity to loud sounds that he requests that people snap instead of clap during shows, making a buzzing and squealing album called "Distortion" seems a curious choice.
But Merritt, the mastermind behind the Magnetic Fields, has never been interested in other people's expectations. For nearly 20 years he has applied his astringent wit and preternatural gift for memorable tunes to a variety of musical genres, in a number of different bands, with a series of self-imposed concepts.
The grinding squall of "Distortion" follows 2004's "i" (in which every song title began with that letter) and 1999's self-explanatory three-disc set, "69 Love Songs." Merritt has said that the 1985 Jesus and Mary Chain album "Psychocandy" inspired the relentless ethos of "Distortion."
In an interview prior to the start of the Magnetic Fields' new tour, which makes a sold-out stop at the Somerville Theatre next Thursday and Friday, we chatted with Merritt, who is famously given to long, thoughtful pauses.
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Q: Knowing that, I'm surprised people haven't come up to you to pester you about what the original idea for the songs was.
A: No, they don't really bother me all the time about it. I think most people don't care what the original idea was.
Q: Wow, that seems a little depressing.
A: Hmm. I'm trying to think of something where I care what the original idea was. Oh, that didn't take long. Yeah, "The Partridge Family." The original idea of "The Partridge Family" TV show was that it would star the Cowsills. Yeah, so in that case I care what the original idea was.
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