David Bowie is reminiscing fondly about the instruments he has known and abused over the years on his albums: the disruptive saxophone solos, the wobbly keyboard fragments, the fractured guitar riffs.

“I’m very proud of most of it,” he says with a laugh during an interview from his New York City home. “All of ‘Low’ is like that. I played most of the stuff on that, and technically it’s not the best, but it’s a terrific album!”

“Low,” released in 1977 and recorded in Berlin with producer Tony Visconti, is still a cornerstone merger of rock, electronic composition and the avant-garde. Visconti was also Bowie’s collaborator on several other revered works: “Young Americans” (1975), “Heroes” (1977) and “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” (1980).

Now with “Heathen” (ISO/Columbia), out this week, Bowie has reunited with his old co-producer for the first time in two decades. The result is one of Bowie’s most personal albums, in large part because of his idiosyncratic musicianship.

“I’m not inhibited when I play with Tony,” Bowie says. “He’s one of the few producers that I have no problem playing any instrument that I care to have a go at, sometimes badly. And I can also say to him, ‘Let’s not get a proper musician to replay that part, because it feels good.’ It’s difficult to find producers with an attitude like that. There are many who are quite judgmental, and are a bit too into technique over content. I’m much more about content rather than technique.”

“Heathen” is an alluring merger of Bowie’s singing at its most fragile and his sometimes brilliantly naive playing, embellished by Visconti’s melancholy soundscapes and string arrangements. It was recorded last summer in a remote mountain studio outside of Woodstock, N.Y.,

Bowie, 55, says he set out to make an album loosely inspired by Richard Strauss’ farewell piece, “Four Last Songs,” written when the classical composer was in his 80s.

“I’m now at an age when I can really understand what Strauss was saying,” Bowie says. “I can optimistically hope that this is not my last album, but I am at an age where I can address some of these things realistically and sensibly. The questions become fewer as you get older. Age matters less and less, and the years you have left more and more.”

Bowie continues to look for new challenges, which sets him apart from many of his ’60s peers. He was one of the first major artists to jump whole-heartedly into Internet distribution of his albums (“Live and Well,” comprised of live tracks and remixes, is available to subscribers at his DavidBowie.com Web site).

He’s also formed his own record label, ISO, after ending his association with Virgin Records, and hopes to sign two artists in the next 18 months to complement his own releases. He licensed “Heathen” to Columbia Records for distribution, but retains control of his master recordings. He sees a day, however, when free music on the Internet will become the norm, and musicians will have to find other means of income rather than record sales.

But Bowie isn’t worried; his investments, including marketing bonds tied to his song catalog that reportedly paid him $55 million a few years ago, have made him one of the wealthiest of rock stars.