ATO Records signs Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney, seen here at a 2005 concert in London, joins fellow U.K. rockers Radiohead on the label founded by Dave Matthews and manager Coran Capshaw in Charlottesville.
PHOTO BY ANDY MACLARTY/FLICKR

Just when you thought Dave Matthews and Coran Capshaw couldn't get any bigger than they are in the music industry, they went and signed the man whose face and voice might be the most recognizable among all living rock musicians. Next Tuesday, November 25, Matthews and Capshaw's Charlottesville-based ATO Records will release Electric Arguments, the latest album from none other than Sir Paul McCartney.

But don't go searching for this album from the former Beatle under "M" in your local record store. McCartney is releasing the album under the pseudonym "The Fireman," a name he's used twice before in the '90s for two LPs McCartney deemed too experimental for release under his own name: 1993's Strawberries Oceans Ships Forests and and 1998's Rushes. But while those two albums were instrumental forays into electronica and sound collage, Electric Arguments features 13 new songs written and performed by McCartney. The album was completed in 13 days, with McCartney starting a new song from scratch each day in the studio.

Already, the album is receiving rave reviews. Rolling Stone gave it four stars, calling it "good ol' psychedelic rock for the ex-Beatle's headiest music in years."

This is the second coup for ATO in a little more than a year. Last October, Capshaw and company signed U.K. rockers Radiohead and earned the rights to sell their 2007 album In Rainbows in stores after the band had made the album available online for whatever fans wished to pay for it (including $0). The album would go on to sell 3 million copies in stores.

No word yet on whether this means McCartney will be releasing any albums under his real name via ATO, but the last McCartney album, 2007's Memory Almost Full, came out on Starbucks' Hear Music label, which folded this year.