Wesleyan University’s finest MGMT may finally be ready to release some new music.

Andrew VanWyngarden, one-half of the ever-inventive synth-pop duo, popped by the MGMT subreddit yesterday to share a photo of a test pressing, on top of which he placed a banana. Maybe because he was about to get his daily dose of potassium, or he wanted to reference the Velvet Underground & Nico cover art. Who’s to say?

Accompanying the photo was a bit of chicken scratch digital writing: “elf of soils.” That could be the name of an album, or — as some fans have started speculating — it might be an anagram for a different title. Six months ago, VanWyngarden shared another photo of him and bandmate Ben Goldwasser, alongside the caption, “Just got done cooking L.O.L.” Some have guessed that “L.O.L,” rather than “laugh out loud” could be short for “Loss of Life.” And indeed, “elf of soils” is an anagram of “that “loss of life.” (Or, as Pitchfork aptly noted under the circumstances — a “bananagram.” Credit where credit’s due for a perfect pun.)

Digging back even further on Reddit, it does seem likely that MGMT will release a new album this year. VanWyngarden said as much himself in a comment from Dec. 2012, responding to a fan’s request for a new LP by saying, “I’d say there’s a 99.999% chance mgmt releases a new full-length album sometime in 2023.” 

MGMT’s last proper studio album, Little Dark Age, was released back in 2018. Since wrapping that album cycle, the band has treated fans to scattered live shows and recordings, such as a 2019 single, “In the Afternoon,” and its accompanying seven-minute instrumental b-side, “As You Move Through the World.” Additionally, last year, MGMT dropped 11.11.11, a live album capturing an apocryphal 45-minute piece the band composed and performed for a special event marking the opening of an exhibit for the artist Maurizio Cattelan at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.