James Iha is premiering his new solo album, Look To Sky – an exciting collection of sophisticated pop melodies, lyrical sharpness and guitar driven rock – on Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco a week before its September 18th release.

Fans can listen to the record beginning today here.

Look To Sky sees Iha returning as a solo artist after nearly a decade and a half, newly inspired, a little wiser and proud to share what he’s learned and created. “I feel like everything should lead up to something and this is a culmination of my journey”

Perhaps best known as a co-founding member and longtime guitarist for Smashing Pumpkins, Iha has gathered musical depth and craftsmanship inspired by his many bands (A Perfect Circle, Tinted Windows) as well as his production work (Cat Power, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs), to create this new album that offers listeners a wide range of sounds that touch upon each aspect of James’ impressive career.

Songs such as “Speed Of Love” “Gemini” and “To Who Knows Where,” three of the ten impressive tracks that tie together Iha’s diverse and stylistic career, showcase his talents as a musician, songwriter, lyricist, arranger, and producer.

Look To Sky was produced by Iha and Nathan Larson of Shudder To Think and features special guests Karen O and Nick Zinner of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara, Nina Persson of the Cardigans, Fountain Of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and Tom Verlaine, frontman of New York rock band Television.

“I like the idea of that feeling you have when you’re young and you’re lying in the grass and looking up at the sky, and you get that feeling of how big the world is” says Iha. “It’s a very cinematic moment that captured the overall feel of the album to me. Also, the title sounded like a phrase you’d hear in a ’50s B-movie, like a directive: ‘The aliens are coming. Look to the sky.’ I mean it from the point of view of, ‘Look all around you. Here’s this incredible world we’re in and there are all these beautiful things happening.’”

After a successful performance at this year’s Fuji Rock Festival, Iha will return to Japan this September for a run of tour dates followed by a string of East Coast US shows.

James Iha Tour Dates
9/22 – Kyoto, Japan @ Umekoji Park
9/24 – Osaka, Japan @ Club Quattro
9/26 – Tokyo, Japan @ Club Quattro
10/4 – Boston, MA @ The Church Of Boston
10/5 – New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
10/6 – Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
10/7 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live
10/8 – Washington, DC @ U Street