Recently released a box set titled "69 Love Songs" which was exactly that. Could be called prolific but this would be an understatement. Other albums include "Charm Of The Highway Strip", "The Wayward Bus", "Distant Plastic Trees", "Holiday" and "Get Lost".

Stephin also records under a bevy of other monikers (with various friends and associates), including The Gothic Archies and Future Bible Heroes, and also as the Celebrity karaoke of The 6ths.

Magnetic Fields is the name of Anré Breton and Phillippe Soupault's 1920 novel (the book was written in French so the title is actually «Les Champs magnétiques»). It is the earliest example of literary Surrealism. The book was composed by the technique of Automatic Writing.

Magnetic Fields is Jean Michel Jarre's third proper album, released in 1981 (although if you include his early works Les Granges Brulees and Deserted Palaces, it comes out as his fifth). In keeping with Jarre's usual style, the album consists of five tracks, named Magnetic Fields Part 1 through to Part 5. Part 1 is easily the longest, clocking in at around eighteen minutes, while the other pieces stick to a more usual three to six minutes.

The album is less ambient and more pop than his previous works. Although Jarre's interest in sampling didn't really kick off until Zoolook, he's always used tape splicing and various other methods to use sampled and manipulated sounds to augment his work - in much of Magnetic Fields there is evidence of Jarre's musique concrete background, particularly in parts three to five. The clanking of trains coupling and decoupling, the hiss of mechanical doors, the clank of vibrating metal strips, and echoing, distorted shouts mingle with the splashing of large objects into water, forming a mysterious and rather inexplicable soundscape. Part two is the usual single-friendly second-side opener, Magnetic Fields' answer to Rendez-Vous IV, Oxygene IV or Equinoxe V. It popped up in a lot of 8-bit demo tracks, and has been used for a number of Konami video games, too. Part Five, on the other hand, is subtitled 'The Last Rumba'. A rather quirky piece, it ends the album in a rather unexpected, almost incongruously cheerful fashion, and manages to sound as though it's been composed on a GameBoy, years before one was invented.

We're pretty anglo-centric here on e2, which is why I've noded this under Magnetic Fields rather than the French title, 'Les Chants Magnétiques'. If you know French, you'll realise that although the English title is Magnetic Fields, the French title translates as Magnetic Songs. It's a pun, you see, because the French for fields is 'champs' and the French for songs is 'chants'. Unfortunately it doesn't translate well into English, so Magnetic Fields it is. Incidentally, Magnetic Fields Part 1 has also appeared as 'The Overture', slowed down immensely and usually performed live. Jarre has a curious habit of reusing tracks and retitling them, often in homage to a particular person or event. In this case, it was the Concerts in China which first had the honour of 'The Overture', celebrating the first Western artist to perform in China since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Magnetic Fields (1981)
1. Magnetic Fields Part 1 (17:57)
2. Magnetic Fields Part 2 (5:25)
3. Magnetic Fields Part 3 (2:55)
4. Magnetic Fields Part 4 (6:13)
5. Magnetic Fields Part 5 (3:31)