| Love at the Bottom of the Sea | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | The Magnetic Fields |
| Cover: | latbots large.jpg |
| Recorded: | Los Angeles; San Francisco; New York |
| Genre: | Synthpop, indie pop |
| Length: | 34:09 |
| Label: | Merge (US), Domino (UK) |
| Producer: | Stephin Merritt |
| Prev Title: | Realism |
| Prev Year: | 2010 |
| Next Title: | 50 Song Memoir |
| Next Year: | 2017 |
Love at the Bottom of the Sea is the tenth studio album by American indie pop band The Magnetic Fields. It was released in the U.K. on March 5, 2012, by record label Domino and in the U.S. on March 6, 2012, by Merge.
Two singles, "Andrew in Drag" and "Quick!", were released from the album.
The album was recorded by Stephin Merritt and Charles Newman at Bell Tree in Los Angeles; Mother West, Serious Business Records and Dubway Studios in New York; and Tiny Telephone Studios in San Francisco.
It is the band's first release with Merge since 1999's 69 Love Songs. After releasing three albums relatively free of synthesizers as part of a "no-synth trilogy" (2004's i, 2008's Distortion, and 2010's Realism), Love at the Bottom of the Sea features the blend of acoustic and synthesized instruments that the band was known for in the 1990s. Stephin Merritt claims he took a fresh approach with the instrumentation, stating "Most of the synthesizers on the record didn't exist when we were last using synthesizers."[1] All of the tracks on the album are between two minutes and three minutes long, with the closing track being the longest at two minutes and thirty-eight seconds.
Love at the Bottom of the Sea was released in the U.K. on March 5, 2012, by record label Domino and in the U.S. on March 6, 2012, by Merge.
The reception from critics has been generally favorable, with the average critical score being a 68 out of 100 according to review aggregator website Metacritic.