Pitchfork

The Cribs (aka English brothers Ryan, Ross, and Gary Jarman) have signed to Warner for their follow-up to 2005's The New Fellas. They were able to snag Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos as the album's producer, in the time off before Franz begin recording their third album.

(Yes, that's what Kapranos and the Cribs were doing in Vancouver when they showed up at a Ukranian Hall one evening to belt out "Take Me Out", as captured in this video.)

In an interview with NME.com, bassist Gary Jarman revealed that the band were also able to enlist another marquee name for the record: Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, who contributed some spoken word action.

"We didn't really know what to expect, but he was a really friendly, nice guy," Jarman said. "He's the king of the spoken word... I had a book of his poetry that I really liked called Road Movies. When the Cribs first started we wanted to be a spoken word band, but none of us really could get our heads round doing it."

As for Ranaldo's contributions to the record, Jarman said, "We just had one day in a studio in New York, and we all played live together in the studio, which was really fun. He did five different full-length things, and we all went through it together choosing our favorite parts."

The Cribs will finish mixing the record with Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Slayer, Afrika Bambaataa) in New York City this week, and they will master it back home in Wakefield, England for a spring release. A U.S. tour is forthcoming, though the band have already announced their appearance at Coachella in April.