For Keith Urban, bringing in new collaborators has given him a renewed sense of energy as he's worked on his new album. Fuse, due Sept. 10, finds the country act working with several producers, among them Nathan Chapman, who produced Urban's latest single, Little Bit of Everything.

He predicts recording will go "down to the wire."

"If you had asked me three months ago, I'd have said we've got 13, 14 songs done and were just going to round them out," Urban who's released "Fuse's" first single, "Little Bit of Everything" tells Billboard. "But new songs have come along that I've finished writing or I find, and before you know it, we're back in tracking those, and then the album goes off into a different direction. I've probably got about 16 or 17 songs, and I've got about three or four, maybe five more to do. There's lost of material; I've just got to figure out what constitutes the album at this stage."

These things usually don't take so long, but Urban is using a new approach with "Fuse." He is branching out from his longtime partnership with producer Dann Huff. While Huff is still onboard on a handful of songs, Urban signed up Jay Joyce, known best in country music for his work with Eric Church and Little Big Town, and Taylor Swift collaborator Nathan Chapman. He's also enlisted rocker Butch Walker.

In all, Urban estimates, he has cut basic tracks for about 16 songs. "It's the first time I'm going to be well and truly over-cut, but that really allows me to shape the record," he says.

And he's not done yet.

"I don't need any more songs," he says. "Of course, if someone sends something that just hits the mark, then I'm going to figure out how to get in and record it."

For instance, Radney Foster, who wrote Urban's hits Raining on Sunday and I'm In, sent Urban a new song Saturday. "I'm going into the studio at the end of this week to see if I can wrangle it, 'cause I really love that song," Urban says.

Fans can expect to hear some of the new material when Urban launches his Light the Fuse World Tour 2013 July 18 in Cincinnati - Urban's just not sure how much.

"Because we hit the road in July and the record doesn't come until September, I'm not sure how many new songs people want to hear," he says. "I certainly don't want to hear too many when I go to somebody's concert.

"I'll probably space it out, slipping a new one in every three or four songs. I don't know - I'll probably know that once we started getting further into the record and start putting the set list together. I should imagine three or four, maybe five new songs, and see how we go."