Watch Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt Play Two Sub-Minute Songs

Last year, Magnetic Fields' founder Stephin Merritt published a book called 101 Two-Letter Words, which consists of four-line poems inspired by the 101 two-letter words that are playable in Scrabble. Keeping in that spirit of brevity, arts journal Interfictions asked Merritt to create two songs based on two of the poems. The results are "Lo" and "La," both of which are less than a minute long. Watch Merritt perform the songs, accompanied by Sam Davol on cello, below

The publication explained the "micro-songs" as such:

The micro-songs function as a commentary on the culture of micro-interactions that dominate early 21st century life: the unbundling of albums into $0.99 micro-purchases; six second micro-movies that bring vast but fleeting micro-fame; the reduction of the epistolary tradition to 140 character micro-blogs; and dating sites where you swipe left or right on a sole picture that constitutes a potential partner’s micro-profile.

Merritt is in a slow period of his current tour, the bulk of which is already completed. His next and final show as part of the tour will take place on July 24 at The Spiegeltent in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. For the tour's format, Merritt performs one song from his discography with a title begins with each letter of the alphabet and plays his 26-song set in alphabetical order.