"One of the songs is the sound of a tree hearing itself for the first time." The forthcoming solo album from former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe sounds like it'll be quite a trip

Former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe is applying the final touches to his debut solo album, and it promises to be an interesting listen.

Stipe has been working on the record for several years, and in a recent interview with The Times, he admitted that completing the collection has "taken longer than I wanted".

"Covid didn’t help," he acknowledged, "but I’m finishing it. When the band split, I just needed a break. I took five years but I got pulled back into music. It’s been a struggle. That’s the main thing. I want it to be great, but I’ve got the pressure of having been in REM and it’s a high bar, because I want this to be as good as that, and that’s near impossible. So it’s fucking exciting but also terrifying, and I’m doing the music for the first time too, and I think I’m good at it but not great."

Now, in an appearance on US TV talk show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the 66-year-old singer says that he is "writing the final lyrics" for the record, and has shared one of its themes.

“One of the songs is the sound of a tree hearing itself for the first time,” he reveals. "It’s this confusing situation. My friend recorded a tree in my backyard in Georgia and played it back to itself, and so it sounds like Daft Punk."

Stipe also suggested that the song will incorporate a sea shanty.

Asked how the tree reacted to its own sound, Stipe replied, "The tree has not responded yet. We’re gonna let his people get back to my people and see what happens."

In his interview with The Times, Stipe suggested that his album might be titled, Meet THE Michael Stipe., and expressed the hope that it would emerge this year.

The four original founding members of R.E.M. - Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry - performed together last summer for the first time since the mid '90s following their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at New York's Marriott Marquis Hotel.

The band's last official performance was on November 18, 2008, when they closed out their Accelerate tour at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City, but drummer Berry hadn't performed with the band since the mid '90s, after he suffered a double brain aneurysm during a March 1995 gig in Lausanne, Switzerland.

There are no plans for the group to play together again.

"We’re just very good friends who somehow survived this 31-year crazy thing that usually divides people," Stipe insisted to The Times.