To the world at large, Stephin Merritt was born in 1999. It was in those waning days of the 20th century that his band the Magnetic Fields released 69 Love Songs, the 3xCD opus that delivered exactly what its title promised, and did so with such diversity and brilliance that it was deemed an instant classic. From that point, the audience for Merritt’s music grew and he was afforded the opportunities that budding songwriters can only dream of. (Interviews with Terry Gross! Volvo ads! A major label deal!) But Merritt’s template had already been in place for about a decade. His work up to that point—lush synthpop recorded for indie labels like Feel Good All Over and Merge—demonstrated his unparalleled ability to write devilishly catchy melodies and lyrics as cloudy and sweet as a Manhattan.
But even before his current deal with Nonesuch Records, Merritt spent some time with a major label. Wooed by A&R man and avowed fan Ken Friedman, the songwriter inked a one-off deal with the Polygram subsidiary London Records. True to his contrarian nature, he didn’t produce a new Magnetic Fields album. Instead, Merritt inaugurated the 6ths, a side project for which he writes all the songs but lets other folks handle the vocals.
The resulting album was Wasps’ Nests, released first in 1995 but now available as a single LP via Captured Tracks. It is a fine, quaintly flawed collection of bubblegummy synthpop that now feels like something of a blip among the more well-known projects he’s done since. But within his creative history, it represents a marker of Merritt’s time within the underground scene, a community that he happily moved past as quickly as he could (“I have no interest in remaining in the indie rock ghetto,” he told the Village Voice in late ’99).
That mainly has to do with the singers conscripted to participate in this first 6ths album (a follow-up called Hyacinths and Thistles came out in 2000). The roster reads like a lineup for a great ’90s music festival: Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, Chris Knox of Tall Dwarfs, Barbara Manning, Anna Domino, and Yo La Tengo drummer/vocalist Georgia Hubley among them.
The supposition is that everyone involved was brought in on the strength or distinctiveness of their vocals, but by and large, Merritt tamps those qualities down. The record is mixed so that the singing is almost overtaken by the burbling synthesizers, reverb-charged guitar lines, and drum machines. Many of the guests also do their best to match the downcast tone of Merritt’s baritone vocals. Some make it work, like Barlow who brings a nice whispery croon to the ballad “In the City in the Rain.” Galaxie 500 leader Dean Wareham takes on the weathered tone of his idol Lou Reed on the swinging gem “Falling Out of Love (With You).” Others, though, including Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan, Knox, and Honeybunch member Jeffrey Underhill, feel like they’re straining to keep from soaring.
It’s the women on Wasps’ Nests that are given the real showcase. Unable to hit Merritt’s low notes, they stay true to their own vocal range and the songs delight as a result. Domino’s turn on “Here in My Heart” is a perfect compliment to the Moroder-meets-folk reel that swirls around her. Helium/Ex Hex head Mary Timony uses her bittersweet tone well to go along with the sad sentiments and chirpy music of “All Dressed Up in Dreams.”
Lyrically, Wasps’ Nests has all the highs and lows of Merritt’s non-conceptual work. The good outweighs the blunders here, but for every fine-tuned verse (“I was happy, which is not like me at all/For an hour I was feeling 10 feet tall”), there are others that stumble. Some are caught up in wordsmithery, or pith, or a tendency to just run through lists in place of sentiment—as with the array of possible lovers he spells out in “When I’m Out of Town” (“The butcher, the baker/The thin undertaker”).
At the time of its release, Wasps’ Nests felt like another victory for a songwriter already on one hell of a winning streak, a feeling only amplified by the release of Get Lost six months later. But listened to now, some two decades later, it’s clear that Merritt was gathering his strength as a songwriter and a producer, which he would soon turn into a full-on torrent of genius.
