Vocalist/guitarist/producer DEVIN TOWNSEND recently announced three pre-Bloodstock Open Air 2011 acoustic shows, due to take place August 9th - 11th. He has now confirmed that the August 9th show in Brighton is officially sold out.

Townsend recently confirmed that the August 11th show in Exeter is also sold out.

Townsend's schedule is as follows:

August

9 - Brighton, UK - Audio - SOLD OUT -
10 - Southampton, UK - Talking Heads
11 - Exeter, UK - Cavern - SOLD OUT -

Support for all three shows will be Dave McPherson.

The Bloodstock Open Air 2011 is scheduled for August 12th - 14th at Catton Hall in Walton On Trent, Derbyshire, UK. Festival details at this location.

As previously reported, in tandem with the release of the Devin Townsend Project's Deconstruction and Ghost albums, InsideOut is offering free download of a 10 song Devin Townsend compilation for a limited time featuring tracks taken from all his albums issued by the label over between 1997 - 2009. It is only available here in cooperation with Facebook and Twitter.

The tracklist is as follows:

'By Your Command' (Ziltoid)

'Christeen' (Infinity)

'Coast' (Ki)

'Deadhead' (Accelerated Evolution)

'Life' (Ocean Machine)

'Material' (Physicist)

'Mountain' (Terria)

'Sit In The Mountain' (Infinity demo)

'Supercrush' (Addicted)

'Vampira' (Synchestra)

As previously reported, during an interview with BW&BK;'s Carl Begai covering his Deconstruction and Ghost albums, Townsend offered some details about his next project, Epicloud. An excerpt from that discussion is available below:

Anything Townsend turns out is bound to be a surprise in the end regardless of pre-release hints and descriptions, and Epicloud is no exception. He does his best to illustrate his intentions, and lets fly with one totally unexpected revelation guaranteed to get jaws flapping once they’ve been yanked off the floor; Epicloud will feature the star of his Addicted record, AGUA DE ANNIQUE vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen.

“This next thing I’m writing, I’m writing for her," says Townsend. "The next bout of material… the drama, the metaphors, the complications and all the heavy shit that went along with the past four or five records have been worked out as far as I can see. Even when I was making Deconstruction and Ghost, I remember thinking that I didn’t really need on an artistic level to make it so dense and so challenging to listen to. So, the stuff that I’ve written now is highly melodic and has very simple structures. I’m finding that what’s coming out naturally now, the guitars are still heavy and it’s still got that epic sound, but it’s very different for me vocally. There’s no screaming; it’s melodic and ethereal-sounding vocals.”

“When it comes to playing live, I think I’ve got a really strong voice for what I want to put across. Specifically in the studio; I can do what I need to do, but my voice isn’t very resilient when it comes to performing live. So I find that after two or three weeks of touring most of my daily struggle is to make my voice not sound like it’s completely bagged. With the new stuff, hopefully I’m going to write all the heavy and hard singing parts for Anneke (laughs).

Go to this location for the complete interview.