Pitchfork

The old man in the shed has announced he'll come out of his hole in the new year with not one, but two new full-lengths. The albums, which will serve as the follow-ups to 1999's critically lauded Mule Variations, are scheduled to be released simultaneously on April 9th by Anti/Epitaph. Titled Alice and Red Drum, the records were written by Waits and his wife/collaborator Kathleen Brennan. Currently, the two are in the autumn of their recording session, with only a few gaps to fill in.

Although Epitaph is calling the albums "startlingly different in landscape, sound, emotion and composition," the musical accompaniment is reported to be largely acoustic. Alice is apparently the more straightforward album of the two, with Epitaph describing it as "haunting opiate songs played by piano, bass sax, Stroh violin, cello and vibes." Red Drum, on the other hand, is referred to as "Tin Pan Alley meets Weimar Republic," and seems a conceptual piece, with material inspired by Georg Buchner's unfinished 1837 play, "Woyzeck." Buchner's story portrayed the life of a destitute soldier who earned his keep by subjecting himself to the outlandish experiments of a strange doctor which eventually drive him mad. Fucking doctors, man. Jesus!

Song titles for the two records include: "We're All Mad Here," "There's Only Alice," "Table Top Joe," "Poor Edward," "Coney Island Baby," "All the World Is Green" and "God's Away On Business."