Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra

Amanda Palmer's been busy recently what with going on tour with Neil Gaiman before Christmas and more recently with Bran Viglione as The Dresden Dolls but she'd now got some 'me' time. She's just released a new, re-recorded version of 'Polly' (she contributed a version to the Nirvana tribute album last year) which is available through her Bandcamp page for 50c + donation. She's also released a rather harrowing video to go with the song.



Of greater importance is the news today that Amanda is heading back into the studio to record a new album! She's recording it with her band, The Grand Theft Orchestra, that supported her on her tour last summer (and I saw at Heaven in September). She's recording it in Australia in a few weeks time after a couple of weeks of rehearsals and a week of live shows to get the songs just right. She reported that she had about 20 songs to choose from, many not played live before. She also says that there'll be synthesizers on the record.

I'm really looking forward to this record, her first full album since 'Who Killed Amanda Palmer' in 2008. Since then she's released some singles, the UkeleleHead record and 'Down Under' (and 'Down Under' has some excellent songs on it) but not a full album. I'm also assuming there'll be a promotional tour and lots of new merch.

Amanda's started talking about us, her fans, as her record label since she doesn't have one at the moment and doesn't seem to want one after her Roadrunner experience. She'll be crowd-sourcing what she needs for this record and I, for one, will be happy to contribute and buy pre-sales and whatever else. I assume that, since she's not tied to record label schedules that she can probably release the album in whatever format she wants, whenever she wants, so I'm expecting a summer or autumn release (that's my assumption, not Amanda's) even though not a single track has been recorded.

I'm really looking forward to this.