And now, a brand new song from David Bowie

Yes, THAT Bowie.

Back in 2001, Bowie was planning to release an album called Toy. He was something of a high at the time, having performed a triumphant set at the 2000 Glastonbury Festival. Time to capitalize on the rush with some recording.

Bowie went into the studio with his band, Mark Plati, Sterling Campbell, Gail Ann Dorsey, Earl Slick, Mike Garson, Holly Palmer, and Emm Gryner (Yes! A Canadian), to take a stab at songs that he’d had around from 1964-71. The goal was to record this album the old-fashioned way: The band all in the studio at the same time performing live. The best takes would be used for the album. The whole process was to take mere weeks, if not just days.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. The mechanisms to record and release an album with such speed just didn’t exist. When those frustrations got too much, Bowie moved on and abandoned an album that he’d called Toy. The sessions that followed became the Heathen album. Toy became regarded as a great lost album.

Now it’s time to revisit those Toy sessions. This is from Bowie’s co-producer, Mark Plati: “Toy is like a moment in time captured in an amber of joy, fire and energy. It’s the sound of people happy to be playing music. David revisited and re-examined his work from decades prior through prisms of experience and fresh perspective – a parallel not lost on me as I now revisit it twenty years later. From time to time, he used to say ‘Mark, this is our album ’ – I think because he knew I was so deeply in the trenches with him on that journey. I’m happy to finally be able to say it now belongs to all of us .”

To be fair, this isn’t going to become as a surprise to the diehard as the Toy was leaked online in 2011. And Toy won’t be released on its own–at least not yet. Fans will have to buy the entire Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) box set when it comes out on November 26.

Meanwhile, we have this first single.