Take it away, @BenFolds:

It’s happening fo sho – Day 1 in studio with Robert and Darren through March #NewBenFoldsFiveRecord twitter.com/BenFolds/statu…

— benjamin folds (@BenFolds) January 25, 2012

When, Ben, when?!

Spring release @Andy_Hampshire #NewBenFoldsFiveRecord

— benjamin folds (@BenFolds) January 25, 2012

There you have it. More details soon, we’re sure.

According to Ben Folds superfan Scott Lapatine, Ben Folds Five only played their Robert Sledge-penned song “Tell Me What I Did” live once: At Scranton University in April 2000. (Do not ask me how he knows this.) (UPDATE: It was played a few times, actually.) This did not stop Folds from reconvening his old band in June to record a new version of the song for his forthcoming career-spanning collection The Best Imitation Of Myself: A Retrospective, out 10/11 on Sony Legacy and available as both a single CD and a triple-disc set. (Two more new songs, “House” and “”Stumblin’ Home Winter Blues,” also appear on the comp.) Listen to “Tell Me What I Did” and check out the tracklist below.

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It’s been a second since we had any news on the Ben Folds front — the last of it was Chatroulette-related, remember Chatroulette?! — but he’s posted a new track on his The Sing-Off profile page called “House.” The Sing-Off of course being NBC’s attempt to parlay some of that The Voice/American Idol mojo. Check it out at NBC — it’s being billed as “the first Ben Folds Five song in ten years,” so there’s that.

Folds’ career anthology, The Best Imitation Of Myself: A Retrospective is available for pre-order and is officially out 10/11 on Sony Legacy.

A cappella’s been creeping further and further into the indie rock realm: Not necessarily bands who sing without instrumentation behind them, but straight-up college a cappella groups covering Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend, backing Rivers Cuomo. It’s like a sickness! Just kidding (sort of). One-upping these dabblings, Ben Folds has created a new album, Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella, a collection of the US of A’s best a cappella groups covering his songs. Over two months, he, his wife Fleur, and engineer Joe Costa recorded the tracks themselves. The sounds were all captured with six area mics. Each session got four hours. This is raw a cappella, people. And, as Folds says, “This is not a novelty .. I consider this my new record…I’m incredibly proud of this.” We have the artwork, the track list, and most importantly, sounds.

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Before Elton John revisited Yellow Brick Road with Ben Folds and others, Folds revisited The Unauthorized Biography Of Rienhold Messner with his old band. Said performance, which took place at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Memorial Hall, was organized as part of MySpace Music’s “Front To Back” series, so it makes sense MySpace would have really good video of the entire event.

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A couple weeks (and change) ago we reported that despite their other projects, Ben Folds Five were reuniting as part of MySpace Music’s “Front To Back” series to play The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner in its entirety at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Memorial Hall. We weren’t lying, it happened last night. It was Darren Jesse, Robert Sledge and Tim & Eric bud Ben F’s first performance together in almost a decade. So far we only have the words of hardcore fans to go by, but it sounds like they did a good job of it. Ben’s father even came out for “Your Most Valuable Possession” (in case you forgot, his message on Ben’s answering machine was used on this song on the album). According to the posts we’ve read, they didn’t play “Brick,” and one dude claims there was no encore, but then some other folks explained to him what it means to encore: “Everything after TUBORM was the encore. You know, you go off stage, you get some applause and you come back. That’s what they did.” This is what they played in addition to Reinhold Messner from front to back:

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In the comments section of our post on the “Hiroshima” video, reader sean took a moment to disparage the fake leak of Way To Normal before writing:

He’s squandered all of his stock-piled Ben Folds Five love … Let’s get the reunion gears spinning for that show. That’d be something, huh?

For some people it would be, yes. Your wish is the Ben Folds Five’s command, sean:

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