Says Plant: “It’s been a blast working on these new songs…and I’m enjoying such creativity and vitality. It’s been a remarkable change of direction for all of us and as a group we all seem to have developed a new groove.”

In recent weeks Plant has been in the studio working on the planned release, which will be his first since Raising Sand, the multi-platinum, 6-time Grammy® winning collaboration with fellow Rounder artist Alison Krauss. Krauss has most recently been recording with her longtime band Union Station, and will be touring with them this summer. The pair do not expect to announce a new album or tour in the coming year, though when asked about the collaboration, Plant says: “Oh yes, Alison and I get together quite often…and sometimes we dance.”

William Brittelle's Television Landscape (June 2010) is an apocalyptic-yet-hopeful mixed-genre concept album from composer/performer William Brittelle. A classically trained composer who was once frontman to NYC punk rock band The Blondes, Brittelle's sophomore album showcases Brittelle's uniquely extensive experience with classical, jazz, and rock music, with influences for Television Landscape varying from Prince's Purple Rain, Michael Jackson's Thriller to the complete orchestral works of Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. The music on the album is fully notated in every regard, featuring ornate string arrangements, epic guitar solos and jazz horn sections all performed by critically-acclaimed musicians/members of The Long Count, So Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, NOW Ensemble, The Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Dirty Projectors collaborator Matt Marks and more.

Sarah Kirkland Snider's debut album Penelope (September 2010) is a haunting 60-minute song cycle for female voice, chamber orchestra, and electronics composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider, featuring vocalist Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and highly acclaimed chamber orchestra Signal, conducted by Brad Lubman, and sound design by Michael Hammond. A deft blend of Snider's classical training and strong interest in indie rock, pop and folk music, Penelope is a genre-defying work that moves organically from moments of wistful string and harp reflection to dusky post-rock textures with distorted drums and guitars, always buoyed by a strong sense of melody. Derived from a multimedia-theater piece co-created by Snider and acclaimed playwright Ellen McLaughlin, the work centers on a woman whose long-missing former husband turns up at her door, traumatized by two decades spent in an unnamed war. To restore his memory, the woman reads aloud from Homer’s “Odyssey.”