Next month, Robyn Hitchcock and XTC founder and frontman Andy Partridge will release a new collaborative EP under the moniker Planet England. Both UK singer-songwriters have laid pretty low in recent years. Hitchcock released a self-titled album back in 2017. Partridge co-wrote eight songs for Mike Keneally’s 2012 album Wing Beat Fantastic. In 2016, he wrote “You Bring The Summer” for the Monkees’ reunion album Good Times!.

“Rather than these two big planets and their similar odd gravities repulsing each other, as might be anticipated. I can cheerfully tell you that it’s been one rather beautiful crashing creative event…that I want to repeat,” Partridge says of the forthcoming EP. “Feels like being in a group again.”

“Andy and I are the same age and suffer from the same record collection, especially the B’s: Barrett, Beatles, Beefheart,” Hitchcock adds. “Andy is the only person that I can easily write songs with. They simply appear, as if we were at a seance. He’s perhaps more logical than me, but it’s not really a contest, is it? A lot of song-writing is solving a puzzle that you’ve set for yourself; I really enjoy going round to his place in Swindon and puzzling with him. I live just up the road, in Nashville…”

Planet England is out 9/6. Pre-order it here.