Christmas came 25 days early for fans of Cloudkicker. We’d known that Ben Sharp was going to release new music today, even though we only found out about it last week. As promised, the five-song EP, Little Histories, has landed on Cloudkicker’s Bandcamp page, and it’s as glorious as you’d expect. One thing that’s slightly different this time: vocals. Sharp sings on “Sky Guide,” with digitized vocals. The five-song EP clocks in at about 20 minutes, but if you purchase it by naming your price, you’ll also get a bonus track, “Signal/Noise.”

Cloudkicker and Sharp’s names are certainly being heard a lot these days. In addition to the album’s release today, his first live album, Live With Intronaut, was released on Century Media. That was a record of Sharp’s first tour, as he’s usually doing the instrumental one-man band from his home in Columbus. While the tour with Intronaut was a one-off, the pairing made sense, and definitely stoked some more interest in Sharp and his project. It was smart of him to release music right around the time that the live album came out.

If you’re interested in purchasing a vinyl version of the album, you’ll be able to do so in January.