First two Magnetic Fields albums to be released on vinyl for the first time The Magnetic Fields’ first two albums, The Wayward Bus and Distant Plastic Trees, will make their debut appearance on vinyl in December 2016, packaged together as a two-LP set. Distant Plastic Trees, the Magnetic Fields’ first album, was originally released in England and Japan in 1991. To the amusement of frontman Stephin Merritt, who composed and recorded the album electronically with virtually no live instruments, Distant Plastic Trees was called “a contender for album of the year” by Folk Roots magazine. But the nomination did not come entirely out of nowhere: Merritt’s accordion player, the novelist Daniel Handler, later noted that “this tinny and intimate recording, in quiet defiance of the reigning roar of pop music, recalls both the early, scratchy field recordings of folk music and the first experiments in electronic music—precisely the sort of stylistic balance the Magnetic Fields liked to achieve.”
