Owl City's Young moonlights as Sky Sailing

Adam Young at the KDWB Jingle Ball in December / By Marlin Levison, Star Tribune

Here's a sign of just how big a deal Owatonna's Adam Young really is in the music industry: The wiz kid behind Owl City somehow convinced his label, Universal Republic, to issue a new album by him under a different moniker, Sky Sailing. The record, "An Airplane Carried Me To Bed," is already set to come out next Tuesday. As hinted at by the Peter Panny title, it features a lot of the same dreamy, nighttimey digi-pop that Young crafted for Owl City's platinum disc "Ocean Eyes." Eleven of the album's 12 tracks are posted on the new Sky Sailing MySpace page. Aside from a little more acoustic guitar and piano, there's not a lot to differentiate the songs from Owl City besides the name. Some of the songs even feature the same AutoTune vocal effect as "Fireflies," etc. Young, however, thought they were different enough to merit the alternate name,

The album is being advertised as "the early recordings of Adam Young," and apparently he finished them during some rare off time from Owl City. He won't have enough time off to support the Sky Sailing disc with any live shows, though. He is currently working on a new Owl City record and has tours with Maroon 5 and John Mayer lined up August-September. You see? A big deal.