After wowing fans with last year's "Apple Venus Volume 1" record, legendary British pop act XTC has put the finishing touches on a second collection culled from the same sessions, titled "Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2)," due out on May 23.

Songs and material for both albums were recorded when XTC's Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding headed back into a studio after settling a seven-year dispute with the group's previous label, Virgin Records.

Originally intended as a double album project, XTC eventually opted to keep the electric material off the first "Apple Venus" volume, which contains mostly acoustic and symphonic-based songs.

When it came time to release the plugged-in tracks, the band decided that the new album needed a more distinctive title than "Volume 2," and Partridge says that he found inspiration in an Aztec tome.

"We were thinking we need to make a fresh start to some extent," Partridge said. "We needed something shorter and more electric sounding. We were mixing the album and in a bit of a panic because we did not have a title.

"I had bought a book about Aztec art, and there was the phrase 'wasp star,' and it's actually the Aztec phrase for the planet Venus, and I thought, 'Oh, that's lovely.' Wasp star is a great pair of words."

• XTC

It's been seven years since the quirky English pop poets in XTC released their last studio album, "Nonsuch," but now Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding have returned to release a new XTC record, "Apple Venus, Volume One."

• XTC

With the release of their first studio album in seven years looming, the eclectic pop outfit XTC will soon get up close and personal with fans to trumpet the release.

• 2/23 - New York, NY @ Tower Records
• 2/24 - Boston, MA @ Tower Records
• 2/25 - Chicago, IL @ Borders Books & Music
• 2/27 - Toronto, ONT @ Tower Records
• 3/2 - San Francisco, CA @ Virgin Megastore
• 3/5 - Los Angeles, CA @ Virgin Megastore

• XTC

Psychedelic Brit popsters XTC will emerge from its six-year, self-imposed recording silence when a four-disc box set of live material, entitled "Transistor Blast," arrives in stores on November 3. In January the group plans to release the first of two new studio albums slated for 1999.

• XTC

Fans yearning for new material from the high-minded English pop outfit XTC may not have to wait much longer.

A spokesperson for TVT Records told MTV News late Monday that the band has inked a deal with the record label that should bear fruit early next year. The record label says that the band is expected to enter the studio later this year to work on its first TVT release, which will be the band's first collection of new material since 1992's "Nonsuch."

In the six years that have followed, XTC fans have had to get by on greatest hits collections and reissues, with a number of the band's early titles resurfacing in 1996.

Given XTC's frontman Andy Partridge's distaste for touring, the spokesperson did not know if a tour would follow the release of the as-yet-untitled album.

The band, which has been around for more than 20 years, found an audience in the 1980s when its blend of spinning melodies, hiccuping beats, and engaging lyrics earned XTC a cult following.

The band is perhaps best known for its 80s college radio hits "Dear God," "Senses Working Overtime," and "Mayor Of Simpleton."

• XTC

November 10 [14:00 EDT] -- Verve Pipe's frontman Brian Vander Ark was contacted recently by Andy Partridge, the reclusive leader of the post punk pop band, XTC, who had a compliment to pay Verve Pipe on their cover of "Blue Array" on the XTC tribute album "Testimonial Dinner." This connection sparked a creative collaboration between the two. Vander Ark has since written fifteen songs with Partridge.

A source close to Verve Pipe says that, "Ringing In My Ears," one song written by the pair, could end up on the next Verve Pipe album, which will start recording in January. Others may wind up on the next XTC album, due out next year.

• The Verve Pipe
• XTC