James Lavelle's UNKLE project has had a few interesting moments, but it's never really recovered after the early departure of Tim Goldsworthy and DJ Shadow. Lavelle spent the last decade working with a revolving door of UK producers and teaming with guest collaborators both high profile (Josh Homme, Brian Eno) and low-impact (The Duke Spirit, South). His latest, Where Did The Night Fall, is scheduled for a May release, and it boasts guest spots from Mark Lanegan and Autolux, among others.

On early album teaser "Natural Selection", Lavelle enlists Texas psych-rockers the Black Angels. The fuzz-drenched production couples well with the Black Angels' swirling drone and dive-bomb guitar lines, adding a sense of aural paranoia UNKLE have often tried for and missed. Where the Black Angels' vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Alex Maas refined his acid-fried whine on his band's 2008's underrated Directions to See a Ghost, here his delivery is hypnotic and bears a British affectation, comparable to Broadcast and Clinic. There's a messy mid-song breakdown here that brings the track crashing to earth, but if nothing else, maybe "Natural Selection" signals a promising new sonic direction for Maas and his Angels.

UNKLE - Natural Selection (Feat. The Black Angels)
Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows (UNKLE Reconstruction full length vocal)