The Magnetic Fields have detailed their forthcoming album 50 Song Memoir**, and shared the album’s first five songs: “‘74 No,” “‘86 How I Failed Ethics,” “‘93 Me and Fred and Dave and Ted,” “‘02 Be True to Your Bar,” and “‘13 Big Enough for Both of Us.” The follow-up to 2012’s Love at the Bottom of the Sea is out March 3 via Nonesuch.The album will be composed of 50 songs, one for every year Stephin Merritt has lived.

5xLP and 5XCD editions of the album will include an interview with the writer Daniel Handler (A Series of Unfortunate Events) and a facsimile of handwritten lyrics by Merritt. You can also purchase the album as a standalone bound book, with a full-album download card. Pre-orders of the album will include an exclusive print signed by Merritt. Below, you can find the album’s artwork, and listen to the first 10 percent of 50 Song Memoir. Find the album’s tracklist and preorder a copy here.

According to a press release, Merritt played more than one hundred instruments on the album, and the group will expand to a septet with a stage set-up that features “50 years of artifacts both musical and decorative”:

“In addition to his vocals on all 50 songs, Merritt plays more than one hundred instruments on 50 Song Memoir, ranging from ukulele to piano to drum machine to abacus. In concert, the music will be played and sung by a newly expanded Magnetic Fields septet in a stage set featuring 50 years of artifacts both musical (vintage computers, reel-to-reel tape decks, newly invented instruments), and decorative (tiki bar, shag carpet, vintage magazines for the perusal of idle musicians). The seven performers each play seven different instruments, either traditional (cello, charango, clavichord) or invented in the last 50 years (Slinky guitar, Swarmatron, synthesizer). The stage extravaganza will be directed by the award-winning Jose Zayas (Love in the Time of Cholera, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter).”

Tomorrow, the band will begin a US tour behind 50 Song Memoir. They plan to play the entirety of 50 Song Memoir across two nights at each of the venues they are performing at (25 songs one night, and the other 25 songs the next). You can find their upcoming tour dates here.