Ed Sheeran announces 'Autumn Variations' album

Aug. 24 (UPI) -- Ed Sheeran will release a new album in September.

The 32-year-old singer-songwriter announced his seventh studio album, Autumn Variations, in a post Thursday.

Autumn Variations follows Sheeran's album Subtract, released in May. The singer recorded the album with The National's Aaron Dessner at the same time as Subtract.

In a video, Sheeran said Autumn Variations is inspired by British composer Edward Elgar and is composed of 14 tracks about 14 friends.

"Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many life changes. After the heat of the summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head or imploded," the star captioned the post.

"When I went through a difficult time at the start of last year, writing songs helped me understand my feelings and come to terms with what was going on, and when I learned about my friend's different situations, I wrote songs, some from their perspectives, some from mine, to capture how they and I viewed the world at that time," he said. "There were highs of falling in love and new friendships among lows of heartbreak, depression, loneliness and confusion."

Sheeran said his dad and brother told him about Elgar, who composed a work called "Enigma Variations" where "each of the 14 compositions were about a different one of his friends."

"This is what inspired me to make this album," Sheeran said. "When I recorded Subtract with Aaron Dessner, we clicked immediately. We wrote and recorded non-stop and this album was born out of that partnership. I feel he has captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully in his sonics and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do."

Sheeran will release Autumn Variations on Sept. 29. The album will be his first to debut on his record label, Gingerbread Man Records.

In June, Sheeran teased the possibility of exploring country music during an appearance on Today.