Ask Chris Cornell about his upcoming solo album and he's quick to warn you, "It's not like Soundgarden." There are no long guitar solos, which lets Cornell put his vocals right out front. "This is a singer's record that's more about the songs," he says of the still untitled record, due in April. "My voice was always the fifth instrument in Soundgarden, and this is an album about my vocals."

Those celebrated vocal cords have been relatively quiet since the breakup of Soundgarden, in April 1997. Never one to play the star game, Cornell has studiously worked on the album in Los Angeles for the past six months, avoiding the spotlight though one of the album's first tracks, "Sunshower", was released on the Great Expectations soundtrack. The mid- tempo, acoustic tune suggests the fell of the new record, which is at times ethereal and dreamy, and almost always pushes the singer's voice to the front of the mix.

The album was recorded at the home studio of Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider of the Los Angeles band Eleven (Cornell met them when Eleven were the opening band on a Soundgarden tour). "We'd sit around the house, and whenever anyone had an idea, we'd go and record it," Cornell says. Blankets were tacked over the windows to block out the noise from neighborhood lawn mowers, but the insulation didn't always help. On "Sunshower" you can hear a garbage truck if you listen closely.

Cornell originally wanted to work with Daniel Lanois, but when that producer was too busy, he opted for the low key approach with Johannes and Schneider. Their home orchestra included chord organs, harmoniums and old, rusty sitars, along with samples from these and other instruments. "It's not modern in terms of electronics," Cornell says of the album. "There's no big, chunky, fuzzy guitars. There's a lot of noisy guitars, but they are there for the atmosphere."

Though much of the material's dark mood will remind listeners of Soundgarden (and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron does appear on one song), Cornell says people will be surprised by the eclectic nature of the record. "It's not schizophrenic, but it's definitely diverse," he notes. "One song is an R&B ballad that I wrote specifically because I wanted to be able to sing a song like that. There are little experiments like that that you can do when it's nobody's business by your own."

At this point, Cornell says, he's less interested in selling records than in achieving his artistic goals. "I never wanted to make music that was considered a part of a fad," he says. "The way things have worked out, the timing for this record is such that I'm not in that situation. And, for once, that's a good thing."

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