Belle & Sebastian‘s Stuart Murdoch has confirmed that the band will record a new album inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest.

Speaking to Rolling Stone at the Sundance Film Festival, where he is promoting new film God Help The Girl, Murdoch revealed that he hopes to have the album finished in time for an autumn release as well as discussing it’s unusual premise.

“We’ve been writing in Glasgow and we will start the record in March. I hope it will be out by autumn. If not, we will have failed,” says the Murdoch. “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 bloc countries, it’s all shifted to the East.”

Discussing how this will work as a Belle & Sebastian album, Murdoch continued: “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.”

Belle & Sebastian released their second rarities compilation album, The Third Eye Centre, in August 2013.