After a year of playing Animal Joy, it’s been fun to spend this winter and spring doing something we’ve never really done before: focusing almost exclusively on other people’s songs.

The Fellow Travelers record is well underway, and should be nearly complete by the end of the month. This is an album of songs by artists we’ve toured with over the years, and at this point it includes songs by Jesca Hoop, Clinic, Coldplay, Bill Callahan, Xiu Xiu (possibly NSFW), David Thomas Broughton, Wye Oak, Lou Barlow, Sharon Van Etten, St Vincent, and the Baptist Generals. (I like imagining all of those folks in one room.) The sessions, recorded by Danny Reisch (who also recorded Animal Joy) have been fun and interesting, especially since we’ve approached every song very differently, and they’ve included members of every SW lineup, including (links go to session pics) the “OGs”: me, Thor, and Kim.

I’m not sure yet when Fellow Travelers will be released, but I’ve already seen some incredible cover art by Kahn & Selesnick, who’ve done all of our covers since Rook. There’ll be more info about this release soon(ish) from Sub Pop.

Kahn & Selesnick also provided the artwork for our official Record Store Day release for Sub Pop, a beautiful, limited-edition vinyl 7″ of two songs we did with our friend and tourmate Sharon Van Etten. The A-side is a remix of the live performance of Tom Petty’s “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” we did for the Onion A/V Club’s Undercover series last year. The B-side is a new song, “A Wake for the Minotaur”, which I wrote as a duet for me and Sharon. This release will only be available at your local independent record store, beginning on April 20th. (“Minotaur” will also be on Sub Pop’s RSD CD compilation.)

Speaking of the A/V Club, they filmed me singing Roy Orbison’s “It’s Over” in the desert near El Paso as part of a series about Texas singers and Texas songs they put together around the time of South by Southwest (which we skipped this year). It was cold out there; I had to keep my fingers in my pockets until the moment they started filming.

I also covered David Bowie’s “Absolute Beginners” live on KUTX radio in Austin on Valentine’s Day. Which launched an odd chain of events: it caught the ear of rock writer Michael Azerrad (author of “Our Band Could Be Your Life”), who asked me to review Bowie’s new album The Next Day for his new online magazine, The Talkhouse, an interesting beast that consists entirely of musicians writing about new music. I was a bit gobsmacked when former Rolling Stone capo Kurt Loder then retweeted it as an example of good new music writing. (Mr. Loder, politics aside, has my undying respect for writing one of the few favorable reviews of Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut back in 1983.)

I also recorded a version of Jason Molina’s song “Didn’t It Rain,” as part of Weary Engine Blues, a tribute compilation assembled by our friends at Graveface Records. Jason’s recent passing saddened everyone here. We toured around the country with him and his band in the old days, and they were both the victims and perpetrators of the most sublime, exasperating, over-the-the-top exchange of tour pranks we ever engaged in; ask me about it sometime. “Didn’t It Rain” was the first song I ever heard Jason play, in Bloomington almost 14 years ago, and all proceeds from the compilation go directly to Jason’s family to help pay for a mountain of medical bills and funeral expenses.

II. Upcoming Performances

We have two performances now on the books:

On the 27th April, we’ll be playing at The University of the South in Sewanee, TN at 11pm, at Lake Cheston Amphitheater. This event is free and open to the public.

Two days earlier on the 25th April at 4:30 PM, I’ll be giving a lecture at the University called “The Moth and the Milky Way: in search of the obvious in art and nature.” Also free and open to the public. I haven’t given a lecture in a while, and I’m not always a fan of the format, so I’m trying to figure out ways to make this one special.

We’ll also be appearing in Seattle on July 13^th as part of Sub Pop’s 25^th Anniversary Jubilee celebration, a free event in the Georgetown neighborhood. You can learn more from this instructional video, which includes a tip on how to pronounce our name.

Thor continues globe-trotting with Swans this year; there’s a great interview with him at The Quietus, in which he explains how he acquired his name, how he feels about being a sex symbol, and why he’s stopped using wooden drumsticks.

- JM/SW

PS. As always, if you’d like to hear from us more than once in a while, you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

There’ll probably be a handful of live appearances this year as well. The first is at The Parish in Austin on February 16th, with support from Brass Bed (AJ tour bassist Christiaan Mader’s excellent band, from Lafayette, LA), and Austin’s own Marmalakes, who also supported us at our slightly exhausted Austin headlining show last year. Other than our brief opening slot for Dinosaur Jr, we weren’t able to play in Austin again in 2012, so we wanted to do it up right in the best-sounding room in our hometown after a proper night’s sleep (a rarity on tour).

In other news, the excellent soundtrack for the ill-fated TV serial “Boss” (iTunes | Amazon) was released digitally just before Christmas. (It comes out on CD on January 29.) It features a song by JM, Lucas Harrison Oswald, and series music director Brian Reitzell called “One Overlord”, as well as new recordings by Robert Plant, Mark Hollis, Jim James, and, um, Kelsey Grammer’s scowling face.

JM also ducked into the studio just before the new year to record a JM-penned song with Sharon Van Etten called “A Wake for the Minotaur”; the result should see release early this year.

Finally, if you’re a Sky TV subscriber, our episode of From the Basement is debuting there in early February on Sky Arts and Sky 3D.

Part 1 features Pushing the River and Breaking the Yearlings (at 11 minutes in); Part 2 is You as You Were and Insolence (at 6 minutes in). Unfortunately it appears that they only allow this to be streamed from the US.

In other news: as of today, we have only two US shows left this year. Europe, we’re coming for you next.

After months of nonstop touring, it’s been great to get away from the urban world and back to some vast spaces, silences, and wild creatures. I’m still convinced that the real action is mostly out here.

But I’m also really looking forward to the next two months of touring, which start next week with the legendary Dinosaur Jr in Nashville. Please note the two headlining shows in Kansas City (with Cowboy Indian Bear) and Chicago that we’ve shoehorned into days “off”.

After that, we’re heading to Europe, beginning with the Iceland Airwaves festival, returning to places we visited earlier in the year (including the UK), and adding in a few spots we’ve never been (Budapest, for example). It’ll be a great way to finish off major touring for Animal Joy, and the most dates we’ve ever played in a single year.

We’re also already looking ahead to the first months of next year – plenty of recording is planned, including a mini-album of songs by bands we’ve toured with over the years (we’re welcoming suggestions on our Facebook page). It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since I watched Ray Janos cut the lacquer masters for Animal Joy.

Last but not least, the episode of “From the Basement” that we taped with Nigel Godrich a few months ago (ask me about that day sometime) is airing in 3D on 3net – but for those of us without the right equipment, it’ll be posted for streaming on Crackle on October 25th.

See you out there, sooner than later.

JM/Shearwater

My old friend (and Blue Water White Death collaborator) Jamie Stewart’s take on “Immaculate”. Jamie’s the mastermind behind the wild and incredible Xiu Xiu, and you can see his fingerprints all over this thing, which is like a 3-hour psychological road movie compressed into just under 3 minutes. (JM)