Pitchfork

Still not quite done with your Christmas/ Hanukkah/Kwanzaa shopping? Get with the times already, man! Today we're here to talk about the new cool thing, Easter gifts (in a theoretical, nondenominational, bunnies'n'eggs sense, so as not to exclude anyone). Number one on your Easter shopping list this year: a brand new, 2XCD/3XLP from Los Angeles/Brussels-based guitar duo Stars of the Lid, their first set of new material in over five years.

Because nothing quite lends majesty and intrigue to an egg hunt like a good multi-part ambient drone piece, Chicago's venerable Kranky Records will deliver the double-disc-- the label's milestone 100th release, catalogue number-wise-- on April 2, just a few days before the holy holiday. It's called Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline, and follows up 2001's The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, another two-disc affair.

Refinement's CD cover art will differ from the LP's, with both designed by band member Adam Wiltzie (that's the LP version above). It features a song called "December Hunting for Vegetarian Fuckface", which will surely incite excited chatter around the Easter dinner table.

Lid Stars Brian McBride and Wiltzie now live on separate continents and recorded the new disc in Los Angeles and Brussels. In further efforts to refine decline, they've spent the past five years or so concentrating on their respective side projects, Wiltzie's "The Dead Texan" and McBride's "Brian McBride".

Drone on, my brothers, drone on!

Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline:

Disc One:

01 Dungtitled (in A Major)
02 Articulate Silences Part 1
03 Articulate Silences Part 2
04 The Evil That Never Arrived
05 Apreludes (in C Sharp Major)
06 Don't Bother They're Here
07 Dopamine Clouds Over Craven Cottage
08 Even If You're Never Awake (Deuxième)
09 Even (Out) +
10 A Meaningful Moment Through a Meaning(less) Process

Disc Two:

01 Another Ballad for Heavy Lids
02 The Daughters of Quiet Minds
03 Hiberner Toujours
04 That Finger on Your Temple Is the Barrel of My Raygun
05 Humectez La Mouture
06 Tippy's Demise
07 The Mouthchew
08 December Hunting for Vegetarian Fuckface