During an interview with BW&BK;'s Carl Begai covering his Deconstruction and Ghost albums, DEVIN 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.

As previously reported, Townsend has announced three pre-Bloodstock Open Air 2011 acoustic shows, due to take place August 9th - 11th.

Details are as follows:

August

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

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.

Townsend released two albums - Deconstruction and Ghost — which are the third and fourth in a series of albums to be made available under The Devin Townsend Project banner, on June 21st via InsideOut Music.

In addition to the Deconstruction and Ghost 2CD package, fans can get their hands on one of the 500 "Special" bundles that contains both of the albums along with a limited-edition 7" titled 'The Calm & The Storm' plus four digital songs from the already completed Ghost II album. For the hardcore Devin fans, there are also 500 of the "Ultimate" bundles which contains everything from the other packages along with a patch and an exclusive t-shirt. All of these are available now at CMDistro.com.

The band is also giving away a song from each of the two new records now. To download these songs, visit this location.