Even though Beck took a rare year off from releasing any new music in 2010, he did spend his time in the studio producing new albums by a pair of alternative rock gods. One of those LPs, Thurston Moore's Demolished Thoughts, is out today, and the other is arriving this summer: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks will release their new album Mirror Traffic on August 23rd, the Matablog writes. Mirror Traffic is Malkmus' fifth album with his post-Pavement band, and his first to be produced a Yanni fan. Unfortunately, Mirror Traffic will be the last Jicks album to feature former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, as Matador announced she's leaving the band. (That likely means Wild Flag, her group with fellow S-K member Carrie Brownstein, may be getting serious.) She'll be replaced by the Joggers' Jake Morris on the Jicks' upcoming tour.
A sample of Mirror Traffic will premiere in the coming days, but Matador Records is already cocky about the new Malkmus disc. "Without dissing prior works that we deeply love, we can promise that Mirror Traffic is the album that ties together Stephen's skill-set like none of its predecessors," the label vows. "The recording is nothing short of gorgeous, the songs crackling with confidence. Calling this an album of the year candidate is really selling the record and the talented ensemble behind it short -- what's so special about this year, anyway?"
We love pretty much everything Malkmus has churned out, from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain to the Jicks stuff, but he sort of lost us at times with his last album, the really Phish-y Real Emotional Trash. Hopefully an oddball like Beck can help reel Malkmus back in a bit.