It’s always exciting to hear about upcoming music from one of my favorite artists. The neat thing about my more obscure favorites — Tift Merritt, say, or today’s featured artist, Josh Rouse — is that those announcements usually sneak up on you.

Such was the case with Rouse’s new album, The Embers of Time, due out on April 7.

Rouse’s previous album, The Happiness Waltz, came out in 2013 and marked a return to his acoustic singer-songwriter pop sound (think Paul Simon pre-Graceland) after a foray into world music (think Paul Simon right-around-Graceland).

Rouse is such a talent that I’m willing to follow him down whatever path he forges, but I’m excited that this single suggests he’s hitting the sweet spot that made me such a fan of albums such as Nebraska and Subtitulo.