As previously reported, Hercules & Love Affair have been working on their sophomore album in the US and Austria, the latter sessions drawing on the production expertise of Patrick Pulsinger.

In a new, in-depth interview with the OMG blog, Hercules mainman Andrew Butler reveals the title of the album to be Blue Songs. As expected, there are no return appearances for Antony Hegarty or Nomi, with vocals this time around being handled by Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke, Venezuelan Aerea Negrot and newcomer Shaun Wright alongside mainstay Kim-Ann Foxman (pictured above with Butler). There has also been significant musical input from industrial/EBM hero Mark Pistel.

“I’m doing a lot more work behind-the-scenes with Mark Pistel, who is a new guy to the band. He co-produced, recorded and engineered a lot of the album in San Francisco. He is an electronic music pioneer of sorts in that he’s been doing it since ’85. He had a band called Consolidated, which was on Nettwerk Records, and then he did Meat Beat Manifesto.”

Butler also talks to OMG about his recently minted label, MR.INTRL.

“The focus [of the label] is strictly classic house and techno. I want to evoke strictly that sound on this label. So I’ve already been pretty hard-ass with people in terms of what the output is. I don’t want anything that sounds pre ’85 or post ’94. It’s really about the golden days of house music and techno.

“[The] first release [‘The Groove’] is an aesthetic collaboration between myself and my ex-lover Jason Kendig, who also happens to be an amazing DJ. We have a KiNK remix and a D-Tron remix on the first release, which I’m really happy about because both of those names are going to spark the interest of quote unquote tech-house listeners and that’s the aim. The aim of MR.INTRL is to explore the current dance music world and Hercules is my opportunity to get as soft and beautiful and ambient, and get as funky and disco-y and house-y as I want to. That freedom with the Hercules project is really important to me.”

Read the whole interview, which also touches upon Butler’s remix work for Lady Gaga and Hercules & Love Affair’s forthcoming cover version of The xx’s ‘Shelter’, here. Below is a video of the band performing new song ‘Step Up’ live at Lovebox 2010, with Kele Okereke on vocals.