The Magnetic Fields release new ballad "I've Got A Date With Jesus"

"I've Got A Date With Jesus" follows on from previous offerings "(I Want To Join A) Biker Gang", "Kraftwerk in a Blackout", and lead single "The Day the Politicians Died".

The latest track runs for less that two-and-a-half-minutes, keeping well within their challenge of making every track under three minutes long.

Quickies will feature 28 songs in total, and will follow on from 2017's 50 Song Memoir.

Merritt says of the new record, "I’ve been reading a lot of very short fiction, and I enjoyed writing 101 Two-Letter Words, the poetry book about the shortest words you can use in Scrabble. And I’ve been listening to a lot of French baroque harpsichord music. Harpsichord doesn’t lend itself to languor. So I’ve been thinking about one instrument at a time, playing for about a minute or so and then stopping, and I’ve been thinking of narratives that are only a few lines long."

He adds, "Also, I had been using a lot of small notebooks, so when I reach the bottom of the page, I’ve only gone a short way. Now that I’m working on a different album, I’m enforcing a large notebook rule so that I don’t do Quickies twice in a row."

Quickies features The Magnetic Field bandmates Sam Davol, Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and John Woo, and contributions from longtime friends and collaborators Chris Ewen, Daniel Handler, and Pinky Weitzman.