Twenty-five years after the release of his debut album, celebrated author, NPR personality and singer/songwriter Wesley Stace, formerly known by his stage name John Wesley Harding, returns with Self-Titled, his first ever record under his given name, September 17. The Wall Street Journal premiered the first track from Self-Titled, “When I Knew.” Listen now in the player below.

Stace chose not to use his well-established stage name for Self-Titled due to the considerably more personal nature of the new songs: “Novels seem to take care of the intellectual business for me these days, and my songs have become a lot more intimate and autobiographical, requiring a different musical treatment entirely. It seemed ridiculous to sing them under any name but my own. It’s time to bring everything under one roof.”

Self-Titled features two songs, “When I Knew” and “Stare At The Sun,” co-written with the Fiery Furnaces’ Eleanor Friedberger. Both tracks appear in alternate versions on Personal Record, Friedberger’s critically acclaimed new record co-written with Stace. SPIN hails the pair’s “easy collaboration” while NPR Music notes that Harding “knows a little something about smart love songs of every stripe.”

Check out the Self-Titled track listing below:

1. The Dealer’s Daughter

2. When I Knew

3. Goodbye Jane

4. Letting Go

5. We Will Always Have New York

6. A Canterbury Kiss

7. Lydia

8. Stare at the Sun

9. Only Thing Missing

10. Ride Your Camel

11. Wrong for the Part

12. Pieces of the Past

13. Excalibur

14. The Wrong Tree

15. The Bedroom You Grew Up In

16. The Woman

Tags: Eleanor Friedberger, Fiery Furnaces, John Wesley Harding, Self-Titled, Wall Street Journal, Wesley Stace