After not as much as a peep out of The Shins since their disappointing 2007 release Wincing The Night Away it appears that they have been busy after all. Not recording, not touring much but they have been reshuffling the line up. Pitchfork has the scoop about how when The Shins took the stage at Washington University on Saturday night the fans caught the first glimpse at the new members. Keyboardist Marty Crandall and drummer Jesse Sandoval have left and are being replaced by Ron Lewis from Grand Archives and Fruit Bats on bass and Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse on drums. Pitchfork caught up with Mercer to find out what had happened, to which he replied:

I started to have production ideas that I wanted to do that basically required some other people,” he said. “It’s mainly about that. It’s an aesthetic decision. It’s kind of hard to talk abut stuff like that, isn’t it? Because I don’t want to bum anybody out. I’m on good terms with those guys, I hope to maintain that.

We’ll see how they do with the new line up but ditching half the founding band members usually doesn’t look good, mostly for the lead singer who are typically the ones who drive off members with their egos. I certainly hope that Mercer doesn’t fall into the category.

As far as a new release, Mercer says that he already has 30 songs written and is road testing two new singles during the spring tour, “Double Bubble” and “The Rifle Spiral”. Unfortunately I have been unable to find recordings of those singles to share with you. Mercer does plan on a new release early next year on his label Aural Apothecary.

This is all I was able to find of the new line up. The audio is pretty crap and they are just playing “Australia” so nothing new really.