We've published a fair few news stories in the recent months about Joanna Newsom's allegedly upcoming new album, the follow-up to the seminal (and seminally long) Ys. Well, there's another, incredibly cryptic, one for you.

Though we didn't get the record in Autumn we hoped we'd get, there was the clue that J-New had been working on her new album in Tokyo, possibly with collaborator Jim O'Rourke.

Now there's a new nugget of (un)information, on the Drag City website. By clicking here and then clicking on the link highlighted, you get taken to this little comic strip, which is mildly intriguing, and highlights a date of 2-23-2010.

As you WELL know, those Yankee Doodle Dandies do their dates in a slightly different order to us, so that means that date is the February 23 this year. Is it an album, though, or a single? Nobody really knows, though as the newshounds over at Pitchfork have pointed out that large tours, as Newsom is doing, tend to coincide with album releases. The fact that 'the noose' on the Drag City website is capitalised as a proper noun, points towards that being the title.

Have one on me? Don't mind if I do Joanna, don't mind if I do.