…and there was much rejoicing.  And by much I mean fucking loads of fucking rejoicing, with bells and whistles and beer and skittles.  And gin.  This is brilliant news.  I first got a sniff of this news when from Jonathan from A Classic Education contacted me about this episode of Maps, a daily show on a Bologna radio station.

Basically Grandaddy, one of my favourite bands, announced that they were packing it in in about 2006.  They released one final, slightly disappointing album called Just Like the Fambly Cat and then that was that.  Lead singer and main songwriter Jason Lytle apparently vanished to a farm in Montana just to get away from everything, although this may be a case of Chinese Whispers over-interpreting a casual remark, I don’t know.

The band were known for steering clear of major labels and eschewing major promoters in order to stay essentially a global indie band, and this inevitably caused problems.  After a handful of brilliant records it got to the stage where an inability to earn a consistent living led to internal tensions, and basically the determination required to follow this particular path simply pressurised the cohesion of the band.  Tiny differences of opinion seemed to grow into major fissures and eventually it all broke apart.  I don’t have that much information, so don’t take the above as gospel, but that’s kind of how it looked to me at the time.

Still, as those of you who listened to this week’s podcast will know, he couldn’t stay away from music forever, nor did I think he was likely to.  Well I’ve just discovered what many people have known for a while: that he is back and has a new album called Yours Truly, the Commuter, slated for release on uber-indie label Anti on the 18th May 2009.

Personally I am fucking hopping up and down with excitement about this one – but inevitably a little nervous about whether or not I will like it as much as I want to.  And actually, there aren’t many clues.  Maps session track Birds Encouraged Him is an acoustic version of a song from the album, and one of the songs on his MySpace page, Flying Thru Canyons, is also a (fucking gorgeous) demo of another album track.  The other is a little tiny bit of electronic noodlery – the sort of diversion that made Grandaddy’s early work so good.  It’s all rather mysterious for the time being though, although apparently there are torrents leaks floating around, according to the odd slightly smug poster on Lytle’s messgae board.  Who cares though – we’ll get it when we get it, and I am itching with anticipation.

Jason Lytle – Birds Encouraged Him (Live at Maps)

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Jason Lytle – Flying Thru Canyons

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Jason Lytle – On a Piece of Wood I Go

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Oh, and for those of you who are interested, this is how he announced his album release on the message board:

ANTI records is making some kind of official press release in a few weeks that will say something
to the effect of……..
jason Lytle album is on ANTI Records
The album release date is May 19.
There are 12 songs ….
melodious and story-ous
the title is “your’s truly ,the commuter”