"Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days," wrote Jonny Greenwood about his band's ubiquitous new album In Rainbows. And now, filling the role of the anti-Radiohead, The Roots have announced the release of their next album in... 162 days?!
The Roots will drop their tenth career album, the hotly anticipated follow-up to 2006's Game Theory, April 29. "I want to be the first rap artist to actually make a good 10th record," the group's drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson told MTV News in August 2006. Unfortunately, we won't know if the group succeeded for another half a year.
"Pretty much five or six songs are done, and four of them are synth-heavy," Thompson told Billboard of the album's progress. And while only a portion of the album has actually been completed, it does have a title. Based on William T. Vollmann's Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means, The Roots have dubbed the record Rising Down.
In other news, just in case the band weren't looking far enough in advance, the hometown heroes will curate the first night of Philadelphia's Drexel University 2008 POPPED! Music Festival, which runs from June 20-22 next year. The seminal rap group will perform their classic album Things Fall Apart in its entirety, according to the organization, who encourage everyone to stay tuned for the announcement of the rest of the weekend's acts. No rush, guys. Seriously.