The Magnetic Fields played to a sold-out audience and a hometown crowd (for a couple band members anyway) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House on Saturday. That same night, the band's latest Nonesuch release, Realism, was the subject of a feature on NPR's All Things Considered.

Guy Raz, the host of Weekend All Things Considered, spoke with Stephin Merritt, "the man some critics call one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation," and band mate Claudia Gonson about the album and its place in the larger Magnetic Fields canon. Stephin also gives a solo performance of the album track "Seduced and Abandoned." You can listen to the segment online at npr.org.

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Also on NPR, writer/musician Carrie Brownstein reviews Saturday's performance at BAM for her Monitor Mix blog. Early on, she's quick to divulge her lack of objectivity when she admits that "perhaps no other contemporary band gets as much play on my stereo."

She considers the venue's opera house "a splendid setting for music" like that of The Magnetic Fields, a band that "wasn't afraid to let each note and instrument possess an unadorned clarity. ... The music was open and airy, with the urbane lyrics providing the only weight."

Brownstein certainly seems to have come away from the performance even more assured of her long-held opinion of the band. "I left the concert feeling lucky that The Magnetic Fields exist," she writes. "Despite a beautiful tableau and orchestral prowess, the group really does tear into you—not with deep jabs but with paper cuts, a constant sting of humor and cynicism, wit, beauty and heartache."

Read the complete concert review at npr.org/blogs/monitormix.