The Magnetic Fields have announced a tour of Europe and the UK for the spring and summer, starting at Asker Kulturus in Oslo on May 31, followed by shows in Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, France, and Germany. Tickets for the newly announced shows go on sale this Friday, February 25, at nonesuch.com/on-tour.

The dates follow The Magnetic Fields' previously announced tour of the United States and Canada in April. That twelve-city tour begins at the Tarrytown Music Hall in upstate New York on April 6, followed by stops in Northampton, Raleigh, Charlottesville, Toronto, Iowa City, Saint Paul, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. You can see all of the currently announced shows below.

The band's latest album, Quickies—released last year to critical acclaim—is twenty-eight short songs by Stephin Merritt, ranging in length from thirteen seconds to two minutes and thirty-five seconds, performed by Merritt and band members Sam Davol, Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and John Woo, along with longtime friends and collaborators Chris Ewen, Daniel Handler, and Pinky Weitzman. Mxdwn says: “It’s like Merritt has made a storybook here, a collection of character sketches, or maybe even poignant profanity, such that Quickies is undeniably vivid,” while the New Yorker praises Merritt as “a mordant wit whose work connects upon contact, and whose obvious sophistication never curtails his naughty streak.”

To date, Stephin Merritt has written and recorded twelve Magnetic Fields albums, including the beloved 69 Love Songs and the 2017 critically acclaimed Nonesuch box set, 50 Song Memoir, which chronicled the first fifty years of the songwriter’s life with one song per year. New York magazine called the box set “a celebration of Merritt’s sky-high range as a writer and a player, through the exploration of the circumstances that helped cultivate it … a delightful flip through the untold back pages of one of rock’s most singular voices, and, all in all, the best damned Magnetic Fields album in the last ten years.” Merritt has also composed original music and lyrics for several music theater pieces, including an off-Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline, for which he received an Obie Award. In 2014, Merritt composed songs and background music for the first musical episode of public radio’s This American Life. Stephin Merritt also releases albums under the band names the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS ON TOUR