Team imaginary has been counting down to the Magnetic Fields Town Hall two-night residency for months and months... and the wait is finally over. Tonight kicks off their massive double fantasy of Fields-ness and to prepare we've been working on converting our overt joy to somber nods as to not scare those on stage.

Who else in the imaginary circle is headed out to the big show?

Any thoughts on the new album? I have to say I agree with this recent posting on the Tullycraft blog about the similarity of a certain song.

By the way, want to be the luckiest guy on the lower east side with a poster of this artwork on your wall? Mark Gamble, an amazing co.uk designer, has printed a limited run of his above design and he might just have a few left!  Thanks to ChrisB and How Fucking Romantic for finding it!

PS - Mark Eitzel is opening so get there early to catch the whole show. It's what Claudia would want you to do.

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It's a big big day my friends. It's so big that as far back as a month ago I had friends emailing me asking if my head was going to explode on this very day. It's not that absurd of a question considering two of my very favoritest bands ever are both releasing brand new full on albums today:

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring
(in town at the Showbox / Market on May 4)

Magnetic Fields - Realism
(in town at Town Hall on Feb 23 and 24)

One saving grace preventing new album overload is that Los Campesinos loaded their entire new effort onto their MySpace page last week (it's their third masterpiece) so that I could listen to it wherever I could find an internet connection (however rickety). It's given me a chance to ease into all the new stuff all demanding priority in my iTunes. Once I get my copy of it on vinyl, the circle will be complete.

The Magnetic Fields tracks have proven a little more elusive. It's all fine though, a mountain of anticipation can be a good thing for a girl.

What new release are you looking forward to?

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Shopping for your loved ones can often be a daunting and stressful task. We here in imaginary land love to make your life easier. Here are a few mostly local itemsthat would make me squeal with delight if they popped up under my proverbial tree.

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As imaginary keenan reported last week, there's a new Magnetic Fields album headed our way on January 26, 2010 {thanks to Nonesuch Records}. And as we speculated {and crossed all our fingers for}, the band will hit the road in support of Realism in February and March!

Get your credit card ready... tickets are on sale RIGHT NOW!

Full deets from the email sent to superfans {which I'm sure includes you and all of the cool people we love}:

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This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of everyone's favorite weepy, happy, ukulele-infused, wonderful massive concussion of long songs album:  69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields. The album set was officially released on September 7, 1999 and the original pressing of 2,500 of the box set sold out within days (per the 69 Love Songs wiki page).

Now, the group has put together a commemoriative re-issue of the set as six 10" records set to release this week. The full, uber-fan description goes as follows (and yes, I along with the rest of you pre-ordered this in May because we just couldn't help ourselves):

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Warning: This is an ecstatic early plug for the upcoming fan-dream book, Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label that Got Big and Stayed Small.

As Magnet magazine is quoted, "[Merge] might be responsible for more indie-rock classics than any other label in the past two decades." David Byrne considers their survival "kind of amazing these days." NPR asserts they're "one of the top independent labels in the world." In Our Noise author John Cook shows the letter that Glitterhouse sent to Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance (in Superchunk, of course, and who started the label) originally sent turning down European distribution (it's hilarious, considering what Merge would achieve); to the later days when Mac feels giddy and weird hanging out near Dr. Dre and Springsteen at Coachella.

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