Pitchfork

Though the sun may have set on the slightly-geeky pop the boys of XTC spent nearly a quarter-century churning out, reports of his own band's demise must've lit a fire under chief songwriter Andy Partridge, whose Ape House Records will unleash no fewer than four Partridge-family projects on US shores April 3 thanks to their distribution deal with Rykodisc.

There's Monstrance, the overdub-free, entirely-improvised, self-titled double-disc set from Partridge and mates Barry Andrews and Martyn Barker of Shriekback. There's Orpheus the Lowdown, conceived over thirteen years worth of sessions between Partridge and Slapp Happy singer and Leviathan cartoonist Peter Blegvad.

On the Partridge-free tip, there's The Secret Life of the Milk and Honey Band, a disc of gossamer pop not far removed from Skylarking-era XTC. Finally, there's the hushed tones and gurgling synths of Veda Hille's Return of the Kildeer. If that seems like a lot at once, know that all but Monstrance have seen release on Partridge's side of the Black Sea in the last few years.