"This is a very selfish album," says Peter Frampton. "It's me, doing what I want to do, for the first time in nine years."

Sometimes we benefit from selfishness, and so it is with NOW. The title as well as the substance of this new album on Framptone Records/33rd Street Records, proves that an artist who has already touched the sky can climb higher still when given the controls.

Each of these songs, in its own way, a glorious premonition: From the raw, passionate power of the first single, "Verge of A Thing," through the delicate intimacy of "Not Forgotten" and the vivid imagery of "Hour of Need" and on to the album's only cover, a soaring flight through "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," NOW emerges as a supreme fusion of technique and emotion. Like the best of Frampton-and the best is as good as it gets-NOW is music for the ages, and for this very moment as well.

The key, Frampton insists, lies in his decision to set the bar higher than he ever has before. "It's all about the material," describes Peter, "the difference between NOW and previous projects is choosing the stuff that feels like me. As a writer, a player, and a singer, I can fit like a glove into everything on NOW. I feel very close to them in every way."

Realizing that he needed total command of the album from day one, Frampton began by assembling the elements of a new home studio, stepping up the process until a state-of-the-art facility was ready to roll in his basement.

"For the first time in my life, I was completely self-contained," he says. "I've had my own studios before, but never one that I could use for everything, from writing to mixing. It was obviously a major outlay, but I knew it was something I had to do, so that /could be in charge of making a record how and whenever I want."

The next step was to get the songs together. Though a few date back as far as four years, most were written with this album in mind. Working alone or with Gordon Kennedy, Wayne Kirkpatrick, his longtime keyboardist Bob Mayo, and other collaborators, Frampton put together a long list of material -- and then began paring it down to the best of the best.

How did the final songs make the cut? "It's very difficult for me to explain," he admits. "For every song, it takes a while to get it to sound how you want. But with some of them, you can almost feel them take of as you're writing. In the past it was always, 'Okay, I've got eleven songs. Let's cut them all and use ten.' That wasn't the case with NOW, I was much more careful about what I decided to use. It took two albums worth of songs to get to where we are."

The patience behind this process paid off. Each title on NOW emits a unique light: "Love Stands Alone," which Frampton, Kennedy, and Mayo conceived as the last hammers struck and the last screws were tightened on the eve of the studio's operation; "Hour of Need," written from a single enigmatic line -- "rider and horse drown in the sea" -- for the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's Oscar-winning, semi-autobiographical Almost Famous; "Not Forgotten," a reflection on love and loss that eerily forecast the traumas of 911; "Flying Without Wings," a classic and clever shuffle that shows off Frampton's virtuosity on guitar and Ebow; "Greens," a searing instrumental born over just a few inspired minutes with Jed Leiber; and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," an essential addition since he performed it in Cincinnati days after the death of his friend George Harrison.

The band played a critical role throughout NOW. Each member has long ties to Frampton: Bob Mayo has been his right-hand man since 1974. ("He's the Bob Mayo, who played keyboards on 'Do You Feel,"' Frampton laughs.) Bassist John Regan joined the group in 1979, and Chad Cromwell, top studio drummer in Nashville, has been on board since 1997. Their intuitive interactions were essential in allowing Frampton blend into his material; through one marathon string of sessions in Cincinnati, followed by shorter meetings to overdub and mix between gigs, they conjured the live, real-time support that brings out the best in any great player.

"Yes, I'm a solo artist, but I don't go anywhere without my band," Frampton declares. "If one of them is unavailable, we don't play; it's that simple. It's all of us, or none of us." The history they share opened everyone on NOW to something beyond the music. 'We're closer than we've ever been, to the point that I just can't imagine not playing with these guys."

There is more, of course, to the Frampton story -- a spectacular career marked by his role as co-founder of the incendiary band Humble Pie with Steve Marriott, the unprecedented success of his live solo milestone Frampton Comes Alive, guest appearances on albums by David Bowie, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and the George Harrison masterpiece All Things Must Pass, countless sold-out concerts around the world ... More recently, his rendering of "Of the Hook" earned a "Best Rock Instrumental Performance" Grammy nomination for his Live In Detroit CD, and the newly released 25th anniversary special edition DVD-Audio of his breakthrough album Frampton Comes Alive! is one of Universal Music Enterprises's premier titles in this new format.

In 2000, Frampton broke into the manufacturing side of the industry ofering a range of high-end, handmade products through Framptone. Produced by guitarists, for guitarists, the Framptone TalkBox and Framptone Amp Switcher pedals are building a loyal base of users from Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) to Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi), Art Alexakis (Everclear), Nine Inch Nails, Joe Walsh, Third Eye Blind, and other headliners.

For Peter Frampton, future is, in fact, NOW.