New album for 2013: "Wise Up Ghost" (with The Roots!)

[martinfoyle]

Album's leaked, if you can't wait another week or so. So has the Govt Mule album, almost within minutes of each other. The new real release date.

[when i was cruel]

'Tripwire' has got to be one of the most gorgeous songs ever.

[docinwestchester]

'Tripwire' has got to be one of the most gorgeous songs ever.

Superb singing. Do I hear some layered EC backing vocals in there?

[when i was cruel]

Redacted glitch

[when i was cruel]

Indeed you do, it's such a fantastically crafted song. Out of all the rehashed lyrics and melodies on the album this is far and away the most spine tingling, wordslinging, beautiful song.

[grantprobst]

'Tripwire' has got to be one of the most gorgeous songs ever.

Superb singing. Do I hear some layered EC backing vocals in there?

Just finished listening to that song on my headphones. Truly beautiful!

Have the deluxe edition preordered on iTunes, too.
All ready to go for this!

[when i was cruel]

I will say now that I already listened to 4 songs off the album over and over until I got my grubby mits on the full album... I feel like I ruined them for myself haha thank god I got other songs to help me cope with 'Post-Piracy Depression'

[Lester Burnham]

While it's nice to "have" this album now, I will be first in line to pick it up on vinyl. Something tells me the album is supposed to be listened to that way.

[Lester Burnham]

Also, agreed 100% on Tripwire. What a gorgeous song.

[invisible Pole]

I second that. Beautiful song.

[And No Coffee Table]

The full album is streaming at NPR.org: http://www.npr.org/2013/09/08/219316721 ... e-up-ghost

(Was it always supposed to start streaming now, or was this prompted by the leak?)

[Otis Westinghouse]

Something tells me the album is supposed to be listened to that way.

It's the subliminal influence of the Walk Us Uptown video!

[Neil.]

Aha! It's being streamed officially all day on the Guardian website:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicb ... ost-stream

[JoeDaddio]

While it's nice to "have" this album now, I will be first in line to pick it up on vinyl. Something tells me the album is supposed to be listened to that way.

I agree. I'm listening to it on NPR right now but I have it pre-ordered on Amazon and can't wait till I'm able to put it on the turntable and put the needle down.


joe

[sweetest punch]

Now that we all can hear the new album: what do we think about Wise Up Ghost?

[jardine]

after two listens through, superb. A very dark and murky locale, all the songs bleeding and blending, images and riffs merging and re-emerging.

First time in a long while I've had the experience with an EC release where I can't quite remember it when I'm not listening to it. Lyrics (what I can catch) evoke something of the terrible political mires of the world, betrayals, class warfares, etc.

Best news of all is that I know for a fact that it is going to take a while for me to really hear what this new work is about, how it fits, what it means. Tripwire, that orchestral burst right at the end of if i could believe, the long and drawn out repetition of intensity of the title track, etc. Looking forward to others' responses--feel like I'm in over my head in rough water here. I THINK this may be astoundingly good...

[And No Coffee Table]

I'm sure this is incomplete: Wise Up Ghost samples and quotes

[jardine]

Thanks for the samples/quotes links. There are dozens and dozens...Love Come the Meantimes. Ok, I'll jump: this thing is really good.

[wardo68]

Okay. I listened several times, and took notes. (Coming soon to an Everybody's Dummy blog near you!) That said...

I can't see giving this anything higher than three stars out of five. Why? Because too many of the grooves sound the same.

The Roots are a great live band; anyone who's watched any two minutes of the Fallon show knows this. So why does the entire album sound like a sample? Even the things that I don't recognize I assume are loops I haven't placed. Methinks it should have stayed an EP, as the full-length I heard today begs for editing.

Oh, don't worry. I'll buy it. Just as I've bought every release street date since 1989 (because Blood & Chocolate came out the week I went to college, and I was busy). But I don't think I'll love it.

At least not like I did North. But that's another argument for a different thread.

[Ymaginatif]

About 5 years ago I recorded a funky backing track. It was so good it needed a song. Unfortunately I wasn't very inspired that day to write any meaningful words. I was too much in a hurry too, so I grabbed the lyricss of a song that just happened to be lying there. And improvised half rapped, half sung those on top of the backing. The song was 'Pills And Soap'.

To my surprise, Elvis Costello seems to have done exactly the same now!

It's a cool sounding, beautifully produced album. But it's sheer defeated song-writing.
Is this going to be just a novelty album? Or is it going to be so good, that it will push aside the original versions of Invasion Hit Parade, Pills and Soap and the like?
I don't know. I enjoy it, but it feels uncomfortable.

[Lester Burnham]

I was put off initially by the sampled songs (Refuse to be Saved, Grenade, Wake Me Up, and Stick Out Your Tongue), and still prefer the less blatantly sampled ones (Tripwire is absolutely gorgeous, and I'd completely forgotten its backing was Satellite), but the whole thing plays as one long song to me, and I love it. Addressing wardo68's opinion that the grooves sound too similar: I agree, but that's what works for me, for some reason. There's very little separation between tracks, with orchestral interludes often serving as a link (Walk Us Uptown and Sugar Won't Work, for example), so to me it's not meant to be listened to separately, but as a continuous piece.

Refuse to be Saved and Wake Me Up are the two blatantly sampled songs that I love. The chorus of the latter is so catchy that I've found myself walking around my house singing it, while the former is equally as doom-laden as the original Invasion Hit Parade. Will it make them better than the originals? I doubt it, but I also doubt that was Elvis's intent. Grenade and Stick Out Your Tongue are still taking some time getting used to, but in the context of the album, I dig 'em well enough.

As far as "originals" go, the aforementioned Tripwire, Come the Meantimes, Wise Up Ghost, and If I Could Believe are the ones that really landed upon first listen. Initially, I was disappointed with the album as a whole, and kept those four titles in my mind so that I could later say, "Well, at least 1/3rd of it's not so bad!" But the more I listen to it, the more I enjoy it. I'd put it in my top 5 best albums EC has released since When I Was Cruel (for anyone wondering, that list goes National Ransom, When I Was Cruel, Delivery Man, Momofuku, Wise Up Ghost, North, The River In Reverse, and Secret, Profane & Sugarcane), but probably wouldn't yet make my top 20 of EC's overall output – yet!

[Neil.]

New review here:
http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/cd ... wise-ghost

[cwr]

"Invasion Hit Parade" felt like it was clearly set in some distant, third world country. It was about the pain WE'LL cause YOU, if you do not cooperate.

"Refuse To Be Saved" feels like it is taking place right here and now: "I REFUSE TO BE SAVED."

This could be either that we have shifted point of view, or that now, the chaos has found its way to us.

Either way, it doesn't feel like a retread. It's a sequel, or a follow-up, or whatever you want to call it, but it feels every bit as valid to me as a newly written song in terms of expressing something current. In some ways, I'd say it's more powerful because of the way it uses the older song to say something different...

[paysfortheprivilege]

1st listen prompted me to go back and listen to MLAR. Stunned how good it sounds overall and flabbergasted at the brilliance of 'Hurry down' and, especially, Invasion Hit parade (neither of which were favourites at the time)

[Jocko Wainwright]

Having listened to the many bonus tracks on EC releases over the years, I'm used to hearing the same lyrics in different contexts. He's always had wandering lyrics that sometimes had trouble finding a permanent home in a song. You could say he's taken that to the next level here, dislodging lyrics that had happy homes and sending them on a different journey. I think the album achieves a thematic and musical coherence that is rare, and I'm not bothered by seeing how the sausage is made.