To my recollection, the last time something like this happened was just before Tales was announced, so it could be that someone's fiddling with their catalogue to set up a pre-order page (like for Head First). Of course, I could totally be wrong, but nevertheless an interesting and odd thing to happen, and it might not be completely out of coincidence, given Alison's cryptic, frequent and exciting posts lately. I'm wondering if we already know the album name (Plutonic Velvet or Stone Spirit)? 

Of course, this is all speculation and nothing concrete, but really it was just too weird of a change to not notice it.

Normally (and from what I can tell), the only time a catalog almost completely vanishes on iTunes is when they're setting up a page for a new release pertaining to the artist(s) in question. Basically, they create the album page and set it up as a pre-order-able item, and schedule it in their system so that once the album is announced the page to buy/pre-order it becomes visible (therefore no last-minute page-prepping that could result in typos, price errors or other mistakes - notice how every Friday just before midnight, that week's new releases all become available at once). My guess is that if the catalog was absent for a while then perhaps iTunes was being given incorrect or outdated information to work with, screwing up their scheduling and whatnot.

Or it could simply be an error or label dispute, etc. that was rectified, but my money is on the album being prepped for announcement. Certainly not this month and probably not in December, but soon.

After all, she wouldn't be hinting at it otherwise. Not yet, at least.

I mean, she likes to have fun torturing us with album releases, but she isn't that mean! Lol.