Boston’s Magnetic Fields are currently prepping for the release of Stephin Merritt’s sprawling 50 Song Memoir, an autobiographical album which contains one song for each year of his life. The five songs and one music video the indie group have released so far feature lush, acoustic melodies, but today’s new single “‘81 How to Play the Synthesizer” bucks the trend.
Living up to its name, “‘81 How to Play the Synthesizer” is driven by a weighty synthesizer and punctuated with snappy hi-hats. The accompanying music video, which you can watch above, was created by John Erickson, Alex Basco Koch and José Zayas. Matching Merritt’s instructive lyrics, the clip alternates between shots of classic synthesizers and instructions for programming them.
50 Song Memoir is out March 3rd via Nonesuch Records. The newly expanded Magnetic Fields are currently touring across the US.
