Hella returns as a duo; Converge posts a studio preview of a new song; Busdriver, Shining (Norway), Om, Russian Circles and Aphex Twin all have new albums on the way.As a duo, multi-instrumentalist Spencer Seim and drummer Zach Hill are working on their first full-length album as Hella in four years. The new album will be completed and released sometime in 2009, but a label has not yet been chosen for the release.
Busdriver will release a new album, Jhelli Beam, via Anti- on June 9, dropping his tireless flow over a disc full of classical, jazz, Bollywood, and prog-rock samples.
Norwegian prog/jazz/metal group Shining currently has a chopped-up preview of its forthcoming album, slated for release on Rune Grammofon on October 12, posted on its MySpace page.
In an interview with BBC, Warp Records founder Steve Beckett says that a new Aphex Twin album definitely is on the way, possibly sometime this year. The last Aphex Twin studio album, Drukqs, was released in 2001.
Stoner/doom duo Om has signed to Drag City, which will release its new, currently untitled album on September 8. The album is being recorded by Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio.
Melodic metal instrumentalists Russian Circles will debut new material during a two-week US tour in late April, after which they will return to the studio to record a follow-up to 2008 album Station, due in October or November on Suicide Squeeze.
Converge has posted a brief preview video of a song from its upcoming album, out later this year on Epitaph/Deathwish.
Both this weekend and next weekend, guitarist/vocalist Nils Frykdahl of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum will provide musical accompaniment for Twobird, a performance-art piece in Berkely by Michael McCamish.
Tonight is the first UK performance by The Fear, a new project from Leo and Milo Smee, the founders of funk/prog/metal collective Chrome Hoof. The duo performs with drums, bass, synths, and samples.