We are pleased to announce that our new album Can I Keep This Pen? will be released on Ipecac Recordings this August '07.

After All City, we became increasingly frustrated with the Columbia machine and left the label. Finally free, we teamed up with producer Chuck Brody of Shitake Monkey (Wu Tang Clan, Yoko Ono etc.) and Adrock from the Beastie Boys and began making our new album. We wrote some rock songs and some hip hop songs and some other kinds of songs. We pushed the limits more than ever in terms of what a hip hop song might sound like, what a rock song might sound like, and what Northern State might sound like. We finally named the album Can I Keep This Pen?

We have now been a band for 7 years. Can I Keep This Pen? is our third proper album, following All City (Columbia Records, 2004), Dying in Stereo (Northern State Records/Startime/Wichita UK, 2003), and our 2002 independent EP Hip Hop You Haven't Heard, which was supposed to be our demo.

We have had the good fortune of sharing the stage in the US and Europe with acts like the Roots, Le Tigre, Talib Kweli, De La Soul, The Gossip, Gym Class Heroes, Tegan and Sara, and Cake.

Mike Patton and Greg at Ipecac heard the new record and loved it and we are thrilled to finally be working with a label that encourages us to be as weird as we are.

Oh, I'm sorry...Can I Keep This Pen?