There’s a nice writeup by Jim DeRogatis in the Chicago Sun-Times:

How did guitarist-vocalist Tim Rutili, drummer Brian Deck, bassist Tim Hurley and percussionist Ben Massarella come to return to the scene now, given that they’ve all been busy with myriad other projects since the group’s last album for Seattle’s Sub Pop Records, “There’s a Star Above the Manger Tonight” (1997)?

“Last summer, Sub Pop asked us to play the [label's 20th] anniversary [show], and at the time, we were putting together the reissue of ‘Bunny Gets Paid’ [1995], so we were like, ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, we might as well play some shows.’ And it turned out to be a lot of fun, so we’ve played six shows in the last year.”

Now, the group is set to play a free show at Millennium Park on Monday [Aug. 24] for a potential crowd 10 times the size of the biggest it ever drew back in the day, when it peaked at selling out Metro. The times, it seems, have finally caught up with the musicians’ unique and otherworldly sounds.

There’s also a little information about the next Califone album, due October 2:

Califone is set to release its next album, “All My Friends Are Funeral Singers,” on Oct. 6, and Rutili brags that it’s the best the group has made. It’s certainly the most ambitious: Rutili wrote the songs at the same time as a feature-length screenplay of the same name, and he’s just finishing editing the film, which the band will screen as it performs the music live on a fall tour that includes prestigious theater and museum gigs such as the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The film is “about a woman who lives in the woods, and she’s a psychic,” Rutili says. “She lives in a house full of ghosts, and one day, the ghosts realize they’re trapped, and she has to find a way–even though she doesn’t want them to go–to get them out of the house. Then they start destroying her life.

“I’ve always goofed around with film and made videos, and it seemed like it was really, really time to do this. I just wanted to play a show that was a real show and to give people a story, instead of like, ‘Welcome to the bar; have some drinks while we play some songs.’ I think it’s going to be a really amazing experience for us, and for the audience as well.”