...you can dance to it.

My (one-month-)long wait for Elvis Costello's Il Sogno has finally ended. What do I think? I like it a lot. The music has a story to tell (that of A Midsummer Night's Dream), and it tells it well, with clearly sketched characters, moods and narrative progression. As dance music (pardon me, a "ballet score"), its energy and movement immediately draw you to imagine dancers performing to it, and maybe even dancing to it yourself. Lyrical, beautiful melodies (notably in John Harle's soprano sax work) and motives weave their way in and out throughout the work. (I also hear allusions in the music ranging from "The Twilight Zone" theme to the Bob Fosse/George Benson "On Broadway"...but I'm sure that's just me.) Now, I did not know until I read the liner notes that one of Elvis Costello's favorite instruments is the cimbalom, or hammered dulcimer, also featured in the orchestration here. These days this lovely CD holds the "repeat play" position in my office during the workday. I want to see this danced someday.

Delivered to my doorstop concurrently with Il Sogno was The Delivery Man, the other new release from Elvis Costello (with The Imposters). When I first put this CD on, I told my husband, "I predict that I'm not going to like this." There had been early word about this CD's heavy country influences (just like my least favorite Costello album, Almost Blue) and its unadorned, noisy production values (just like my next-to-least favorite Costello album, Blood and Chocolate). And there were reports that the songs on this CD would be wrapped around a southern Gothic storyline, the favored territory of the lazy iconographer. But, as it turned out, I had unfairly prejudged what I was about to hear. This is the best Elvis Costello I've heard in over fifteen years. He sings his lungs out on this one with the authenticity of his younger self, but with the broader range of emotions that he's acquired as a singer over the decades, without getting too mannered about it. The songwriting is a brilliant amalgam of old-school country and old-school British invasion—you get to hear Steve Nieve go from upright piano honky-tonk to the Abba-Arrival-esque flourishes that first made their appearance on Armed Forces, lo these many years ago. And yet E.C.'s singing on the straight-country number "Either Side of the Same Town" is knock-out wrenching, light-years away from the lugubrious earnestness that crippled the Almost Blue album. The stuttering bossa-nova of "Bedlam" is irresistibly catchy, with lyrics from the sixth circle of hell. And "Monkey to Man" just makes me want to do the Batusi. There's a throwaway line in "Bedlam" about a cellphone ringtone that plays "Jerusalem", but real echoes of "Jerusalem" ring through "The Scarlet Tide" (the Elvis Costello/T-Bone Burnett song nominated for an Oscar, sung by Alison Krauss on the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack), which closes out the CD.

And so it is that The Delivery Man is being played interminably around my house these days, somewhat to my husband's regret—his score on the (imaginary) Elvis Costello Concurrence Index would be, well, less than zero. For the patient readers of this blog who score much the same but have read this far anyway, my humble and heartfelt thanks for your indulgence.

Comments

[Fred]

*You* like Elvis Costello? That is so ... *wrong*.

[Chan S.]

You say "cognitive dissonance" like it's a bad thing! Cheers.

[karin]

thanks for the delightful review. I love Elvis Costello and it's nice to hear that his new stuff is so good.

[Chan S.]

Thanks, Karin. It's definitely worth a listen!

[grappyker]

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