Yesterday on Nonesuch.com, we brought you Introductions, the first in a five-part series of videos unveiling Realism, The Magnetic Fields' latest Nonesuch release, out on CD this Tuesday, January 26. Today, in the second episode, L.A.: A Folk Heaven, Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson return to explain why recording the new, folk-inspired album in Los Angeles made perfect sense.

"L.A. just kind of worked for this theme," says Gonson of the band's concept of making a "quiet record" this time around in response to the "noisy record," 2008's Distortion. "Somehow the folk thing worked out really well in the bucolic, perpetual sun of L.A."

The two go on to trade stories of the surreally apt surroundings that proved why L.A. is "a folk heaven." Hear why in the latest video at nonesuch.com/media.

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UK music site Drowned in Sound rates Realism an 8 out of 10. Reviewer Hannah Gregory begins by describing The Magnetic Fields oeuvre as "Eternally Great Pop Songs" and goes on to list just some of what makes them so endearing and how the new album's songs fit that mold. "Possessing all the courtly candour of 69 Love Songs," she concludes, "these are the painterly depictions of a poet concerned with fall-outs and lock-ins, love nests and dry gin. Who knows what's real and what's not, but The Magnetic Fields write Great Pop songs, and this means a lot." Read the complete review at drownedinsound.com.

Also out of the UK comes an interview with Merritt in The Quietus, in which he addresses the distinction between the real and fictional in his songs. You can read what he has to say on that and a number of issues, including love, religion, and gay marriage, at thequietus.com.