Wilco will start writing its next album just in time for Halloween, according to band member Pat Sansone.

"We're taking a couple of weeks off," the multi-instrumentalist, fresh off a plane from Berlin, said. "When I get back toward the end of [the] month, we're getting back together to start working, to start the first writing sessions for the record. We’ve done a little bit of brainstorming, but the real work is going to begin at the end of [the] month."

The upcoming set, the follow-up to 2009's "Wilco (The Album)," will be the Chicago act's eighth studio effort. In the meantime, Sansone has a full plate: On Oct. 7 , he'll celebrate the release of the book "100 Polaroids," a collection of his snapshots from his time with the band, at Paper Chase Press' Eighth Veil space on Sunset Boulevard. He's planning further parties in Chicago and New York, not to mention another album release: The Autumn Defense, his pre-Wilco soft-rock collaboration with Wilco bassist John Stirratt, will drop its fourth album, "Once Around," on Nov. 2.

Like asking Yankees chief Joe Girardi if he would be willing to leave New York to manage the Chicago Cubs, peppering a famous musician with inquiries as to where his band may or may not sign is a line of interrogation that's sure to be met with vagaries (warning: this post has them). Yet Wilco's Jeff Tweedy knows the questions will come his way, and understands that speculation could point the daring Chicago pop band to a certain L.A. indie.

On Tuesday, Epitaph's multi-genre imprint Anti- Records will release "You Are Not Alone" from Chicago soul luminary Mavis Staples, a refined collection of gospel-tinged folk and blues that was produced by Tweedy in Wilco's Windy City studio. As detailed in Sunday's Calendar story, Staples is experiencing a late-career rejuvenation. The 71-year-old and 60-year-recording vet is now on her third album from Anti-, and the artist said she's noticed a boost in attention since linking with the respected label, where legends (Roky Erickson) stand alongside the elegant (Neko Case) and the out-and-out weird (Man Man). 

The label's multi-genre approach is not too different from that of Warner Music Group imprint Nonesuch Records, where Wilco has just completed its recording contract. With Tweedy recently telling Billboard that it "seems unlikely that we will be under the umbrella of a major label" for future albums, has his experience working with Anti- on the Staples album put the Silver Lake-based label in the running as a future Wilco home?

There would seemingly be little that would catch Mavis Staples by surprise. Yet with Staples now 71 years old, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy found a way to get the soul/gospel veteran to step out of her comfort zone -- literally. 

Staples' career began in earnest in the '50s, and with the Staples Singers she spent her youth on the Southern gospel circuit. Through the family's close association with Martin Luther King Jr., the Staples Singers provided a score for the civil rights era. It's safe to say that in her 60 years of singing, the South Side of Chicago resident has seen plenty. 

Yet she had never before recorded in a Chicago stairwell in below-freezing weather.

Tweedy wanted to capture Staples a cappella and in the cold, putting the boldness and defiance of her richly deep vocals front and center for a rendition of the jubilant gospel cut "Wonderful Savior." Staples, however, was more concerned about the temperature.  

"When he said he wanted to go in the stairwell," Staples recalled, "I said, ‘Are you crazy? It’s 10 below zero! I’m not going out there.’" 

Tweedy didn't relent. Tasked with producing Staples' second studio effort for Silver Lake's Anti- Records, the Sept. 14 release "You Are Not Alone," Staples noted that Tweedy took great pains to give her soulful traditionalism a refreshing spin. In the end, Staples put her full trust in Tweedy.

"He’s very family-orientated, and me too," Staples said. "He talked about his two sons. I liked him from that." 

In other words, she was willing to brave the Chicago winter for Tweedy, who recorded Staples in Wilco's famed Windy City recording studio "The Loft." 

When the lineup for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival was announced earlier this year, there was one festival-ready act that seemed missing from the bill: Chicago's rootsy art-rockers Wilco. But no matter -- turns out Wilco was readying its own festival.

Wilco today unveiled the Solid Sound Festival, set for Aug. 13-15 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in the small town of North Adams. Think of it as sort of an All Tomorrow's Parties that's all things Wilco, and Pop & Hiss (this writer, at least) will be among the nerd boys in attendance. 

In addition to a headlining Wilco concert, the weekend will feature performances from the various side projects of its individual band members, including those from Los Angeles' own guitar wizard Nels Cline. Also promised, though a lineup has not yet been announced, will be comedy performances, but one can probably expect Wilco friend Fred Armisen to pay a visit. 

Multi-instrumentalist and former member of Wilco Jay Bennett died this weekend, according to a post on the website for Undertow Music Collective. He was 45.

A cause of death was unknown. “We are profoundly saddened to report that our friend died in his sleep last night. Jay was a beautiful human being who will be missed,” read the update on Undertow. The company released his 2002 solo album, “Palace at 4 am (Part I).”

Representatives from the label and management firm had not responded to requests for comment as of Sunday evening, but the Chicago Sun-Times reached Bennett’s friend and collaborator Edward Burch. "Early this morning, Jay died in his sleep and an autopsy is being performed," Burch told Jim DeRogatis.

In the late ‘80s, Bennett founded the rock band Titanic Love Affair in Urbana, Ill., which lasted into the mid-‘90s. He was best known for his seven years in adventurous rock act Wilco. Bennett split from the Chicago-based group in 2001, and since his departure had been pursuing a solo career, as well as operating Pieholden Suite Sound – named after a song on Wilco’s 1999 album “Summerteeth” -- in Champaign , Ill. 

Bennett released the solo effort “Whatever Happened I Apologize” via the Web late last year, and reported at that time that he was pursuing "another" master’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yet it was Bennett’s time in Wilco that won him the most acclaim.

He had a not-so-amicable split from the band in 2001, which was documented in the 2002 film “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” and Greg Kot’s book “Wilco: Learning How to Die.” He did, however, play a major role in the band as a writer, producer and musician. The orchestrated pop of “Summerteeth” further stripped Wilco of its country-rock roots, and 2002’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” saw the band move into more atmospheric territory.

 

— It doesn't have an official release date until June 30 ("at the latest," reports Wilco's website), but the new album from Wilco is streaming now. The upcoming 11-track "Wilco (The Album)" is available for listening on the band's official site. Pop & Hiss is only four tracks in, so the blog will refrain from offering any sort of opinion here, but the initial reaction is that "Wilco (the Song)" is less silly on record than it was on "The Colbert Report," and the guitar tension in "Bull Black Nova" is pretty riveting stuff. The new album is online in advance of Wilco's summer tour, which launches May 23 and lands in the Los Angeles area for four sold-out dates beginning June 20 at the Fox Theater in Pomona.

Drummer Alex and guitarist Nels grew up as jazz hounds around L.A., yet they ended up taking parallel but divergent paths.

For a pair of identical twins, it's surprisingly easy to tell Nels and Alex Cline apart.

Dressed in a T-shirt and dark, slim-cut jeans, spiky-haired Nels Cline looks the part of distinguished "guitar god," even at 52 years old. Rolling Stone paid the angular musician the compliment in 2007 after he rose through the L.A. jazz and improvised music scene to join Wilco, a band he wryly admits many of his contemporaries have only heard of through their kids.

Drummer Alex Cline, by contrast, bears the softer edges and serenity befitting a man who has studied under Buddhist thinker Thich Nhat Hanh. Alex also has been a fixture on the L.A. scene for 30 years, but with his wire-rimmed glasses, he looks more like a professorial dad on a Saturday afternoon -- mostly because he is.

Read more Twins’ double lives: Nels & Alex Cline

(And this is the last thing we're saying about Wilco today, we swear!)

Joining the esteemed company of Talk Talk and Metallica as bands who write songs with their own name in the lyrics, Wilco debuted "Wilco the Song" last night on "The Colbert Report" after the fake-news personality sat for a typically awkward interview session with frontman Jeff Tweedy. (Finest moment? When Colbert sagged his shoulders in an attempt to match Tweedy's barely-there energy.)

Though it's hard to imagine much time (or straight-faced effort) was spent on a chorus of "Wilco'll love you, baby," the band's usual head-bobbing hallmarks are chugging through the song in force, and it's always good to see Nels Cline maiming his guitar on national television. And, if you're possessed of the right mindset and Wilco nerd-dom -- something I freely admit -- that little hook will still worm its way into your head, even when Tweedy pays tribute to Colbert by subbing in his name for the chorus midway through.

Wilco also debuted two new songs at Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit last weekend, but good luck finding audio of those out there. Until then, tide yourself over with this little slice of mostly sincere Halloween candy.

--Chris Barton

Plexifilm has stated that it will postpone indefinitely the Blu-ray release of Wilco's 2002 documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" after the band e-mailed fans and suggested they not buy it.

Plexifilm founder Gary Hustwit e-mailed Pop & Hiss and directed us to a post on the company's website entitled "I am trying to release a Blu-ray."

In part, it reads, "We don’t feel comfortable releasing a version of the film that Wilco might have reservations about. So here’s what we’re doing: we’re postponing the Blu-ray release, to give us an opportunity to show the band the differences between the HD and standard definition versions."

As noted earlier, Wilco, in an e-mail to fans announcing tour dates and this week's appearance on "The Colbert Report," urged people not to buy the Blu-ray edition of the film.

The band wrote, "Without consulting us, the DVD company (not WB/Nonesuch) that released "I am trying to break your heart" is about to issue a Blu-Ray Edition which, no surprise, costs considerably more (nearly 2x) than the standard DVD ... there is, in our opinion, not much to be gained by spending the extra cash. It's your money... and in this case you should probably hang onto it. "

On Friday, Hustwit and Plexifilm posted an extensive response on the company's website, detailing the benefits of Blu-ray, and also stated that the decision to release a hi-def version of the film belongs to the filmmaker, in this case Sam Jones, and not the subject, in this case Wilco.

* This version updates an earlier post; please see the jump.

In this tough economic time, Chicago-centered rock band Wilco is looking out for you. For those die-hard Wilco completists out there, the band is trying to save you some money. Don't, says the band, buy a new Blu-ray edition of its 2002 documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart."

At the end of an e-mail announcing tour dates as well as an appearance Thursday night on "The Colbert Report," the band had a "CONSUMER ALERT" (the caps, Pop & Hiss wants it known, are all Wilco). Reads the notice:

Without consulting us, the DVD company (not WB/Nonesuch) that released "I am trying to break your heart" is about to issue a Blu-Ray Edition which, no surprise, costs considerably more (nearly 2x) than the standard DVD. We're unsure as to the rationale for the release, given that the film was shot in beautiful grainy B&W and has a stereo-only audio track... there is, in our opinion, not much to be gained by spending the extra cash. It's your money... and in this case you should probably hang onto it.

On Amazon.com, the single-disc version of the film costs $17.99, the two-disc DVD set will run you $24.99, and the Blu-ray edition, which will be released Nov. 18, is selling at a pre-order price of $30.99. Or you can find the used copy of the VHS (VHS! Was 2002 really that long ago?) for about $12.