Belle and Sebastian‘s Stuart Murdoch has confirmed that the indie icons will start recording their new album in March.

“We’ve been writing in Glasgow”, Murdoch told Rolling Stone. “I hope it will be out by autumn. If not, we will have failed. One of the things I wanted to explore – this might seem a bit facetious, but we have this thing called a Eurovision Song Contest. For example, Abba won in 1974, and that’s how they got their big break. And that was really the last great song from Eurovision.

“Since then it’s been kind of a train wreck, but it gives you a window into every little country, and it’s the only time that Europe gets together for this big party, and now, especially now, we have all the Russian block, eastern block countries, it’s all shifted to the East. So in a sense, I remember saying to the band, I want to do an album that one song feels like it could be the Cyprus entry for 1974. And then next song would be the German entry for 1989, or something like that. You might not see that in the finished songs, but somewhere that’s been an inspiration.”

The group confirmed the new album late last year. Now, who remembers FACT’s Eurovision?