The Mountain Goats will be releasing one-and-a-half EPs. We already knew about the one. But the “half” is news: a six-song John Darnielle & Kaki King collaboration, entitled Black Pear Tree EP. In the words of Darnielle himself:

Photo by Wesley Verhoeve. For more photos from this shoot click the image.

“The new Mountain Goats EP– the one I mentioned a few weeks back, with the limited gatefold vinyl and the special cover art and the pay-whatcha-like download option (about which we’ll tell you more once we sort everything out)– is called Satanic Messiah. It has four songs on it, one per side at 45 rpm, the way God intended. Two songs are mainly piano and voice; the other two are mainly acoustic guitar and voice… The other news– at which I hinted on my Flickr, here– is that Kaki King and I, under a cloak of great secrecy, snuck into Baucom Road studios in western North Carolina last month and recorded the six-song Black Pear Tree EP together with Scott Solter producing. The record is presently at the pressing plant and the idea is to have copies ready on vinyl for tour, with a sleeve designed by Horse & Buggy press, and the first 200 on colored vinyl. People who know how I feel about Kaki’s music can imagine what an honor it was for me to get to work with her… We are both really excited to share this record with everybody. So excited in fact that here’s one of the songs. On this one, I played piano and sang; Kaki played drums and glockenspiel, and also sang harmony. The song is sung from the point of view of Toad. If you know who Toad is, that’s all I’ll need to tell you. If you don’t who Toad is, you better recognize.”

With King in tow, The Mountain Goats will tour the U.S. beginning October 13. Go here to see the dates.