Interpol are supposedly hard at work on a new album (hopefully one that makes up for Our Love to Admire measuring a 9.5 on the meh scale), but lead singer Paul Banks has other things going on too: Matador has announced that Banks has a solo album under the moniker Julian Plenti coming out in August. Matador, of course, was the label that ushered Interpol to indie-fame (and a million albums sold of their first two releases) before the band bolted for the head-scratching confines of Capitol.

Julian Plenti is...Skyscraper is due out on August 4, and you can hear a few snippets by going to this website. Some of the songs were written almost 10 years ago before Bank joined Interpol, and he's been using the name Julian Plenti for just as long. It's pretty hard for the song snippets not to sound Interpol-like, given Banks' bark being as important to their sound as any of the instruments, but the tracks have a regal, eastern European vibe to them as well. [via Stereogum]