Glen Phillips - Thankful

A little birdy clued me in on the forthcoming release from Glen Phillips, former lead singer of alternative nation favorites Toad the Wet Sprocket. Phillips' new album Winter Pays for Summer is not due to hit record stores until March, but this track has already shown up on radio stations around the country. This is Phillips' second official solo album (he also has a live album recorded at the famed Largo), but his first for new label Lost Highway (a personal favorite.)

Because of his obvious affiliation with Largo, where Jon Brion has had an on and off residency for years, it's no surprise that the multi-talented Brion (brilliant producer of such artists as Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, and Rufus Wainwright), guests on the album contributing background vocals, keyboards, and electric guitar. Other notable guest appearances include vocals by both Ben Folds and Andy Sturmer (of Jellyfish!), not to mention, former Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson co-wrote three songs and played on another. Are you frothing at the mouth yet fellow gen-xers? Well, grab my hand and let's take a walk down memory lane:

Phillips says the musical inspiration for Winter Pays for Summer was a handful of albums "that really ripped my heart out as a kid" - classics like the Waterboys' This Is the Sea, the Replacements' Let It Be, Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden, XTC's English Settlement and Peter Gabriel's So. "I guess I wanted in some ways to make an '80s record that had aged really well," he says. Along with the above reference points, listeners will pick up distinct echoes of the indigenous SoCal singer-songwriter tradition that is as much a part of the Santa Barbara native"s artistic makeup as it was with antecedents like Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon and Lindsey Buckingham.

Winter Pays For Summer will be released March 29th.

Bonus Track: Gather