also: Monster Magnet [ tickets ], Les Claypool, Elvis Costello [ tickets ], more.

Ani DiFranco [ tickets ] is following up last year’s 6-song EP “Swing Set” with a much more formidable offering this week. Titled “Revelling/Reckoning,” the renowned folk artist’s latest release on her own Righteous Babe Records label is a 2-CD set that houses 29 new tracks.

“Revelling/Reckoning” contains several songs--such as “"Subdivision," "So What," and "Garden of Simple”--that DiFranco has been performing live for some time, according to her label’s official website. Half of the album’s material features DiFranco performing solo, while the other half features her backed by her band, as well as guests such as Maceo Parker, Jon Hassell and Lloyd Maines.

DiFranco explained in an interview on her label’s site that she decided to split the album into two discs to accommodate the two different moods of the songs she had written. The material on the first disc is a bit more uplifting than that of the second disc, but both discs work well together, she said.

“Even though the albums are really distinct pieces of work and they have much different flavors, much different characters, it is a double album in the sense that the journey really is from track one, disc one to track sixteen, disc two,” said DiFranco. “And by the time you get to the end of the first disc, you're already set up for the fall [laughs] of the second disc.”

DiFranco recently embarked on a North American tour, dates for which are scheduled through late July.

Nick Cave [ tickets ] & the Bad Seeds offer up “No More Shall We Part” (Mute/Reprise) this week, the group’s first album of new material since 1997’s “The Boatman’s Call.” The disc is the band’s eleventh studio album, and was recorded in London’s famous Abbey Road studios last fall, according to Reprise.

“No More Shall We Part,” in keeping with Cave’s penchant for gloom, “oscillates neurotically between the savage and the sentimental,” according to a label press release.

In 1999, Cave released “Best of Nick Cave & the Badseeds,” a 16-track retrospective spanning the group’s then 15-year recording career.

Cave finished a short tour of the U.S. in March, and is currently on the road in Europe.

Monster Magnet [ tickets ]’s “God Says No” (A&M), which was originally slated to hit stores in mid-February, finally surfaces this week. The disc is the group’s fifth studio release, and is the follow-up to its 1998 breakthrough album “Powertrip.”

To mark the release of its new disc, Monster Magnet is scheduled to perform a free concert at New Jersey record store Vintage Vinyl Records on Tuesday (4/10) at 7 p.m. The group will also be signing copies of its new disc at the event.

A tour in support of the disc kicks off in New York the following day.

Les Claypool--best known as the bass-playing frontman for alt-rock act Primus [ tickets ]--delivers “Live Frogs - Set 1” (Prawn Song) this week, a recording that captures his performance with his Flying Frog Brigade. The disc is the first of a planned 2-disc release that was recorded at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco last Oct. 8 and 9.

A second disc recorded during the performance will be released later this year, according to Claypool’s official website.

Claypool’s Frog Brigade is one of the several side projects that the bassist has worked with while Primus hibernates. The outfit recently headlined the SnoCore Icicle Ball tour.

The off-beat pairing of Elvis Costello [ tickets ] and opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter results in this week’s release of “For the Stars” (Deutsche Grammophon). Otter handles vocals while Costello’s contribution primarily comprises songwriting, producing and playing various instruments.

The disc includes two songs that were penned by Costello especially for the album.

Detailed information about “For the Stars” and audio samples of the album’s tracks are available at the disc’s official website.