Story by Matt Kivel

Ever since Blender.com posted a brief interview with Shins frontman James Mercer, there has been an abundance of speculation regarding the  songwriter's hinted-at side project. In the interview, Mercer says that he feels "like it would be good ... to create another thing, another band basically. It would be with other people, I just don't know who yet." He also goes on to cast doubt upon The Shins future with Sub Pop - the label they've called home for three albums.

Now, it's definitely too soon to make any sort of legitimate statements regarding the future of this nascent Mercer side project - from the looks of this interview, Mercer himself doesn't seem to be very sure about the group's makeup - but a trusted source tells me that the Shins leader was recently spotted grabbing lunch at Auntie Em's Kitchen in Los Angeles' Eagle Rock district with uber-producer/Gnarls Barkley mastermind, Dangermouse.

Maybe it was just the rich cupcakes or towering open-faced sandwiches that lured these two musical titans out of their cloistered studios, but considering the wildly diverse list of artists Dangermouse has collaborated with in recent years (Gorillaz, MF Doom, The Black Keys, Beck) it doesn't seem unlikely that the two may have been talking about more than just the food.

Fingers-crossed, we'll have some kind of pastoral pop/trip hop supergroup helmed by these two in the near future.