More than three years ago, Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis released the casually great mostly-acoustic solo album Several Shades Of Why, an album you should absolutely check out if it flew under your radar. Last month, while he was sitting in with Fred Armisen’s house band on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Mascis casually announced that he’d follow that album up with a new one called Tied To A Star. Mascis recorded and produced the album in Massachusetts, with veteran indie producer John Agnello mixing, and musicians like Chan Marshall make guest appearances. “Every Morning,” the album’s first single, made its way to the internet this morning, and you might be delighted to learn that it’s not a Sugar Ray cover. It’s a driving full-band effort, not one of the last album’s acoustic meditations, but it still has plenty of that laid-back front-porch air about it. This is a very good song, and it will probably sound even better in the late-summer dog days, when the album arrives. Listen to the track and check out the Tied To A Star tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Me Again”
02 “Every Morning”
03 “Heal The Star”
04 “Wide Awake”
05 “Stumble”
06 “And Then”
07 “Drifter”
08 “Trailing Off”
09 “Come Down”
10 “Better Plane”

Tied To A Star is out 8/26 on Sub Pop.

UPDATE: Read comedian Todd Barry’s new Mascis bio to accompany the album.

It makes perfect sense that I was asked to write a bio for J Mascis. Let’s face it, he and I have a long history. It all started the first time I saw him live. It was in New York City. I don’t remember when or where, but I think he was walking around. I was probably walking around, too. The second time was also in New York, at a Mexican restaurant in the East Village (the one that takes credit cards now, but didn’t used to). Years later I actually met him at the SXSW festival though a friend who works at Sub Pop. I guess that meeting went well, because when that friend from Sub Pop got married, she sat me at the same table as J. Sounds unbelievable? I suggest you look at the picture below. Now keep staring at that picture until August 26th. That’s when J’s new acoustic album Tied To A Star comes out on Sub Pop Records. It features appearances by Ken Maiuri, Pall Jenkins, Mark Mulcahy, and Chan Marshall. Had I been in the area, I’m sure I would’ve been asked to play on it, too.
– Todd Barry