Noah and the Whale Set New Album for March 2011

*Update: Stream the first single here.

*Update 2: Watch the first video here.

With all the time spent raving about Laura Marling’s new album around here, I’ve been remiss in not mentioning her old band Noah and the Whale, whose song “Blue Skies” was one of the best of last year. Up until recently, Charlie Fink and friends were playing shows in support of their second album and posting brief updates online (including teasers about writing new material), but all that’s been taken down as their promotion of The First Days of Spring is officially over: “New Album, March 2011,” reads their MySpace, blog, and official site below a photo of a studio monitor.

Details are scarce of course, but I fortunately saved an interesting (now-deleted) post by Fink from January with thoughts on the album’s direction. “I’m toying with the title Old Joy at the moment,” wrote Fink before listing 4 songs and 2 poems that were inspiring the songwriting at the moment. In addition to Lou Reed’s “Street Hassle” (obvs: the song soundtracked the final scene of Noah Baumbach’s Squid and the Whale), songs by Cat Power, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty (whose “Last DJ” they recently covered), Fink posted links to Philip Larkin reading “Aubade” and Tom Waits reading Bukowski’s “Nirvana.”

Stream/watch some of Fink’s LP3-inspiring songs/poems below: