Another long-awaited CD which has been pushed back from a January ‘06 release date is the next project from B???la Fleck & The Flecktones, The Hidden Land. We posted about this upcoming album back in November, when an initial release date was announced, but the word from Columbia is that it will hit the street on February 14.

This new project will be released in the DualDisc format, using a two-sided disc containing both a standard audio CD and a DVD on opposite sides of the same disc. The DVD side will feature live performance footage of the band at the Nashville Jazz Workshop, as well as a spoof “rockumentary,” which is described by the band’s publicists this way:

Showcasing the longtime familiarity and ease of the band, the satire reveals Future Man’s “hallucinations” of a new friend. Meanwhile bassist Victor Lemonte Wooten only communicates by writing notes on a portable white board. Coffin has learned to play his baritone far too loud and the whole gang crashes at Fleck’s house after a disastrous ‘rehearsal.’

The Flecktones, of course, is B???la’s jazz/funk/fusion ensemble, using electrified instruments and percussion. Folks with no interest in music of this sort – even with a banjo – can start disliking it now, even before it is released.