Quick, Before It Melts.

They're calling Conor Oberst's new self-titled album his first solo outing in 13 years, which goes some way to separate it from his body of work as Bright Eyes. His previous solo albums were recorded in his early teens, and according to one recent interview, Oberst feels that the new material shares a certain kinship with his early work. "It's still coming from the same place, as far as simple songs composed and recorded as well as I could, with whatever circumstances I was in," he says, referring to the making of Conor Oberst. The album was written and recorded in a rented villa-style hotel in the heart of Mexico with his own Mystic Valley Band (Jason Boesel of Rilo Kiley, Macey Taylor, Taylor Hollingsworth, Nik Freitas, and Bright Eyes chum Nate Walcott). The band just simply relaxed and let the music come naturally, recording whenever and however they felt like, with plenty of bonding time in between sessions. That's quite different from the year-long process of working on Bright Eyes' last record, Cassadaga.

Conor Oberst hits the shelves on August 5th, via Merge Records, and just yesterday, this amazing little nugget of gold was released to whet our whistles and kick start the anticipation.