It’s been two years since Josh Ritter’s The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter came out and though it really is an awesome album (probably has his best song too), its precursor, The Animal Years, is truly my jam. We can debate that later, though, as Ritter is set to head out on tour with The Swell Season, aka Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, and he has another album in the can. Now that should make Mary-Louise Parker and I happy at least.
“I’ve just gotten back from Sam Kassirer’s Great North Sound Society in Maine, where we’ve finished recording my new (as yet untitled) record,” Ritter wrote on his MySpace page. “It’s a pretty huge record – big stories, big sounds, large distances – and we’ll be mixing it in the next little while.”
So we don’t have a label or title yet for Ritter’s upcoming epic record, but he has a bunch of tour dates in the meantime, which will surely include preview performances of his new songs. Those dates include two concerts in Los Angeles next month with Hansard and Irglová, a short run up the East Coast, and a massive tour of Europe with The Swell Season next February.
That should be enough to keep him busy, right? “In addition to the record and these shows, I’m working on my big second draft of my novel,” Ritter adds, “which is a short little saucy number, but which is cracking me up in an evil way these days.”
Way to go all Nick Cave on us! Check out Josh Ritter’s upcoming dates and more thataway.