After a near 2 year long recording sabbatical, Matt Maggiacomo has announced that there will be a new Whomping Willows album before 2013 is up!

In a surprise video yesterday, Matt launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the “new” Whomping Willows album. We say “new” because according to Matt, the album is actually an unreleased album that the Whomping Willow recorded in 1975, which Potter fans will immediately recognize as the Mauraders Era at Hogwarts.

At this point, Matt simply doesn’t have the proper equipment to play back and restore the songs on the 1975 recording. So he has no idea what the songs sound like, although Whompy has shared with Matt that he really loves Belle & Sebastian because they remind him of his favorite bands from the 1970’s. Hmmm, interesting…

Because the new/old Whomping Willows album is being funded by Kickstarter, there’s all sorts of creative and individualized rewards being offered to backers. One lucky backer has the opportunity to take ownership of the guitar Matt used to record the first few Whomping Willows albums with, and has toured the country with. Other backers can receive handwritten lyrics from the album, letters from Matt about the album’s recording, or have Matt record any one cover song of their choice.

One interesting non-musical backer reward is the offer of an original Harry Potter fanfiction written by Matt. When asked about possible subjects, Matt said “If someone’s willing to donate $150 to this very complicated, expensive restoration project, then I will certainly write for them any kind of story their heart desires.” So let your imaginations take flight (in your dad’s flying car) with all sorts of crazy pairings and situations!

Matt’s goal for this new album is to raise $1500 as a baseline, which was reached and surpassed in less than 9 hours! This initial goal allows Matt to release the new Whomping Willows album in a digital format. If he hits $5000, he’ll book an album release tour (nice!), and has even more goals in mind.

If you’d like to pre-order and back the new Whomping Willows album, visit his Kickstarter and be sure to follow him on Twitter as he provides everyone with updates on his fundraising goals.