Here's something unsurprising: Neil Young—whose most recent album, 2009's Fork In The Road, is still plenty warm—is already recording a new full-length. According to a Rolling Stone interview with David Crosby, Young has shacked up in the studio with renowned producer and fellow Canadian, Daniel Lanois. Young has been mostly self-producing over the past few years, with occasional help from longtime friends Niko Bolas and L.A. Johnson, and it's the death of Johnson earlier this year that Crosby says may have spurred Young to make an out-of-the-blue choice like Lanois.
Lanois is best known for his haunting and often atmospheric work with artists such as Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, and U2, which makes him sort of an odd choice for the jagged, ragged Young (although Lanois did man the boards for Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy and Time Out Of Mind); it should be interesting to see what comes of the whole thing.