Chris Walla, the guitarist with TLOBF faves Death Cab For Cutie, is to release a solo effort early next year.

Entitled Field Manual it’s due for release on 29th January on Barsuk Records. The label have described it as having “a strong political thread,” an is the first solo effort to come from the Walla who’s also a much in-demand producer.

However, its release has hit a bit of a snag. There’s unconfirmed reports from Barsuk Records that the hard drive that contained master mixes for the album was seized by U.S. Customs officials when they tried to bring in across the U.S.-Canadian border.

“Apparently the U.S. government is unfamiliar with FTP sites, and believes that physically transporting hard drives across the border is the technique of choice for foreign individuals trying to move sensitive information into our country,” the label’s statement read.

Why Walla didn’t make use of said FTP sites to deliver the record to the label isn’t commented on…