Sean Lennon readies first album in eight years

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Eight years after his solo debut,

Sean Lennon will return September 26 with the Capitol album "Friendly Fire," which features contributions from Jon Brion, session drummer Matt Chamberlain, Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda,

Paul Simon's son Harper and actress

Bijou Phillips.

Lennon describes "Friendly Fire" as "an experiment to see what it might be like to do music more publicly again" after limiting his recent recorded output to collaborations with artists such as Handsome Boy Modeling School, Money Mark,

Ben Lee and

Ryan Adams.

The 10-track "Friendly Fire," which includes a cover of

Marc Bolan's "Would I Be the One," is the follow-up to 1998's "Into the Sun." That album, issued by the Beastie Boys' now-defunct Grand Royal label, debuted at No. 4 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart.

In conjunction with the new album, Lennon and director Michelle Civetta have created short films for each song. They feature appearances by Phillips,

Lindsay Lohan,

Carrie Fisher,

Asia Argento and

Jordana Brewster, among others. A trail is available from Lennon's Web site (http://www.capitolrecords.net/seanlennon/).

Reuters/Billboard