Leonard Cohen has "Old Ideas" with new album

(CBS) Leonard Cohen has a new album full of "Old Ideas." The 77-year-old singer-songwriter is out with his first full-length collection of original material in eight years.

Cohen has been at work on the 10-track set, "Old Ideas," over the last few years. Although he only started recording the new material in January 2011, Cohen performed a few of the new songs, including "Amen" and "Lullaby," in concert back in 2007.

Cohen told Rolling Stone he recorded the songs in his backyard, explaining, "I have a little studio over my garage - Pro Tools - and Ed Sanders, who is my engineer, he has a lovely little studio. So we were in very small studios, with Pro Tools ... It didn't take much more than a year to record, working off and on."

So why the title "Old Ideas"? "It was the old ideas, old - you might even say unresolved - ideas that are wracking around in my brain, and the brain of the culture," Cohen told Rolling Stone.

Cohen is in the midst of lining up a tour, though no dates have been announced yet. He was on the road from 2008-2010.