Stephen Malkmus has been on a prolific streak of late, having released the great Sparkle Hard in 2018 and the weird, electronic-leaning Groove Denied in 2019. This year, Malkmus is reuniting with Pavement at Primavera Sound this spring, but he's got solo stuff planned as well. According to the 2020 Preview issue of Uncut, Malkmus has a new album titled Traditional Techniques which the magazine says was made with Chris Funk of The Decemberists and Matt Sweeney, plus Spooner Oldham on one song and "these dudes who play free-flowing Afghan stoner improvs. We used them on four songs, because we wanted some balance." More on the album from Malkmus in Uncut:

There are 10 songs and it's mostly performed live. We're messing with these kind of boomery, '60s tropes - all acoustic guitars, almost all dudes with moustaches. Sometimes the lyrics play off Summer-of-69 hippy imagery, but at other times the songs are very current and alsu use the same protest signal in a modern way, with updated imagery. There are also parts that are pure sound, with a stoner feel.

Uncut says the album will be out in March and the picture above of Malkmus, Funk and Sweeney ("the core group" says Stephen) is from Malkmus' bio page of AXS' website which has more on the album mentioning song titles like “The Greatest Own in Legal History,” “Cash Up” and "Xian Man."

A tour has not been announced, but Malkmus is playing NYC's Webster Hall on April 13.

UPDATE: The album's been announced, there's a full tour, and there's a BrooklynVegan presale for the Webster Hall show that starts Wednesday, January 22 at noon. Use password TRADITIONAL.