Indigo Girls principal Amy Ray is about to begin a tour (Oct. 19 in Nashville) in support of her third solo studio effort, "Didn't It Feel Kinder," but her main group is also soon to return to activity.

The Girls' next studio album, produced by Mitchell Froom, is due in February. "It's 10 songs but the one thing about this record that I'll say is cool is that we recorded two records, one with the band and then we went back and did the whole record again as a duo live in the studio straight to tape," Ray tells Billboard.com.

"So we have those two records and we plan on releasing them together. It's basically like two perspectives of the same song. It gives everybody both sides of the equation."

Ray says the currently untitled effort, which may feature an extra song on the acoustic CD, will be released independently.

"We had just gotten dropped from our label, Hollywood, which for me and (Indigo Girls musical partner) Emily (Saliers) felt like a real blessing because that situation wasn't very good," Ray says. "We probably shouldn't have even gone into it. But we're excited now because we really feel like being without label is going to be a good thing for us for a while."

Current plans call for the Indigo Girls to mount numerous stateside tours in support of the new disc. In fact, Ray hints the twosome may tour with a full band to begin with and then follow that up later with an acoustic duo jaunt.

As for songs expected to be on the next CD, both "Fleet of Hope" and "Sugar Tongue" are in the mix. Even though Ray admits there are live clips of the new songs already on YouTube, bootlegged versions of unreleased material is of little concern.

"We don't mind it at all," Ray says. "Like for us, it's all just getting it out there and building the community. It's fun and like when people were bootlegging shows in the old days."