An early 2010 release has been announced for the debut album from Black Prairie, the experimental bluegrassy outfit formed about three years ago by three-fifths of The Decemberists (accordionist Jenny Conlee, guitarist Chris Funk, bassist Nate Query) plus a pair of lesser-known, Portland-based musicians (Jon Neufeld, Annalisa Tornfelt).

The 13 songs on Feast of the Hunter’s Moon, produced by Americana/folk label Sugar Hill Records, will sound like “[a] bone slid across a fiddle bridge on accident, but you though [sic] about how you were going to drag it across for a hot second and it still sounded the same,” according to the group’s MySpace page. Colin Meloy may not be writing the lyrics this go-round (in fact, the pair of Black Prairie tracks on MySpace hardly have any) but clearly, he’s still penning the promotional copy.