Pitchfork

"HAPPPYYY FREAKIN NEW YYYEAR" begins a message posted Saturday-- January 19-- on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' website. But who are we to quibble over two-and-a-half weeks' tardiness when the news that follows is as welcome as this?

Believe it: "We have a wet and wild feeling about 2008 and we're not kidding," reads the posting. "YYYs are currently writing and recording another record. A chunk of December was spent on a musical farm in Mass[achusetts] throwing cow dung at each other, making music makes us do strange things."

That record, cow dung and all, will be the full-length follow-up to 2006's Show Your Bones and the immediate record shelf successor to last year's Is Is EP.

And what else have our dear Yeah Yeah Yeahs been agreeing to of late? Apart from re-vamping their website, Nick Zinner's case of Hives, and Karen O's walk on the Wild Things side, each pillar of the YYYs trifecta has kept plenty busy.

Drummer Brian Chase has been lending his time-keeping skills to a number of fellow Brooklynites, including the Sway Machinery, BPO, and Drummer's Corpse. He's also embarked on a solo endeavor tentatively titled Drums and Drones and inspired by prepared piano pioneer La Monte Young's 1962 piece Dream House.

Zinner has continued embracing his photographic muse and is working on his second photo book, the follow-up to 2005's crowd shot compendium and tour travelogue I Hope You Are All Happy Now.

Karen O, finally, "is piddling around on various top secret projects" (one of which, we can only assume, is her musical contribution to Where the Wild Things Are). She also co-directed a music video for her underage pals Tiny Masters of Today.