50 Song Memoir is the new album from songwriter Stephin Merritt’s beloved recording project, the Magnetic Fields. This personal album, containing fifty songs, one for each year of the artist’s life, is to be released in early 2017 on Nonesuch Records.

Fri, Apr 28: Songs 26-50

Unlike Stephin’s previous work, the lyrics on 50 Song Memoir are nonfiction, a mix of autobiography and documentary. There is one song per year for the fifty years since 1965. Musically the sound ranges as widely and adventurously as possible, within the context of lyrics-driven music.

In concert the music will be played and sung by seven performers in a stage set featuring fifty 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 instruments, traditional (cello, charango, clavichord) or invented in the last 50 years (Slinky guitar, Swarmatron, synthesizer).

http://cap.ucla.edu/calendar/details/magnetic_fields_2017_1