Back in November news surfaced that R.E.M. had gone back into the studio to work on the follow up to 2008's 'Accelerate' with with Grammy Award winning Irish producer Garret "Jacknife" Lee. Now, by all accounts, they've finished the record and are hoping to release it in the Spring of 2011.
The as yet untitled album is R.E.M.'s fifth overall, and was recorded in Berlin's legendary Hansa Studios, where U2 recorded 'Achtung Baby', and David Bowie worked on 'Low', 'Heroes' and 'Lodger' (hence the reason they collectively referred to as his "Berlin trilogy").
The band wrote about the influence of the location in a recent post on the their website.
"Berlin is a pulsing, exciting city with so many varied and distinctive neighborhoods, iconic history all around, great food at all levels and from every corner of the world . . . an excellent place to set up camp and make a great record."
Meanwhile manager Bertis Downs said, "I will not report on the sound or the dimension of the recordings so far, to my ears it all sounds like quite a wonderful set of songs."
R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck also worked with Jacknife Lee, as well as Gary Lightbody on the recently released Tired Pony album 'The Place We Ran From'.