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

Pretty self-explanatory
Post Reply
sheeptotheslaughter
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:51 am

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

Post by sheeptotheslaughter »

Otis Westinghouse wrote:Came home expecting to find Verbal, Sulky and whoever else celebrating the UK release. Where are you? A couple of people on the 'countdown' thread only. For my own part my glorious plans to 'rush my money to the record shops' went pear-shaped due to about 5 too many issues to deal with at work. So I will go in the morning en route to work, or I'll spend the week not making it! Hope they have it ...

Anti climax in the Sheep household my copy hasn't been delivered yet. No record shops near work anymore.
sheeptotheslaughter
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:51 am

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

Post by sheeptotheslaughter »

Pete Thomas is number one in the UK album chart following his guest appearance on the Arctic Monkeys album. What chance Elvis knocking off the top of the chart next week. :wink:
User avatar
Otis Westinghouse
Posts: 8856
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:32 pm
Location: The theatre of dreams

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

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Didn't know Pete was on that! Must check it out.

If anyone wants to order the Deluxe online for a decent price in/from the UK, there are two Amazon Mktplace options on at £9.56 + £1.26 p+p.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
User avatar
John
Posts: 800
Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2003 5:52 am
Location: North of England

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

Post by John »

It looks like the album has already peaked in the UK and is starting to fall down the charts. Itunes currently have the 2 versions of the album at numbers 96 and 142 down from about 80 and 100 yesterday. On Amazon the album is down to 34 from 29.

In the US it is completely different with the album at 15 on Itunes and up to 9 on Amazon.
User avatar
John
Posts: 800
Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2003 5:52 am
Location: North of England

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

Post by John »

Very disappointed - my order with WOW HD for the deluxe edition is now showing as a back order (out of stock) - :x
sulky lad
Posts: 2425
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Out of the kitchen,she's gone with the wind

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

Post by sulky lad »

My vinyl copy arrived yesterday but the Michell is still carefully wrappedin bubble wrap and I trawled the only CD outlets in Plymouth in vain for the CD . May have to take a day out to trek around to find it - and I might even have Doc's recording from last night before the CD appears. Like Otis, I prefer to go to a record shop to purchase important releases but this is becoming more of an expedition than a joyous jaunt with the lack of suitable shops around.
cwr
Posts: 784
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2007 7:14 pm

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

Post by cwr »

Moreover, 1980’s Motown- and Stax-obsessed album Get Lucky!! is a career highlight.
Quick! Everyone dig out their copies of GET LUCKY!!
Little Fool
Posts: 65
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2012 11:43 am

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

Post by Little Fool »

Have managed a few 'listens to' now and initial reaction is good but there are very few tracks that have a traditional melody. I guess that's probably the appeal.
A number of reviews I have read say that the original intention was to re-work some back catalogue Costello but this idea was ditched in favour of new material ???????!!!!!!!!!!!
Well I must say that I can easily identify Bedlam, She's pulling out the Pin and Invasion Hit Parade as well as Pills and soap, almost in their entirety but with a different chorus.
It does seem strange when you suddenly hear a well known lyric delivered in a different way as they are littered throughout the album. There are only really three tracks which are actually 'sung' in the true sense of the word, and two of those are bonus edition only.
Still, it is different and an interesting musical collaboration. Hope all the people still waiting for their CD's get them soon.
sheeptotheslaughter
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:51 am

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

Post by sheeptotheslaughter »

John wrote:Very disappointed - my order with WOW HD for the deluxe edition is now showing as a back order (out of stock) - :x
Mine is the same. Won't be using them again
Poor Deportee
Posts: 671
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 7:30 pm
Location: Chocolate Town

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

Post by Poor Deportee »

cwr wrote:
Moreover, 1980’s Motown- and Stax-obsessed album Get Lucky!! is a career highlight.
Quick! Everyone dig out their copies of GET LUCKY!!
:lol: Now that WOULD be a brilliant album title for some Costello-savvy ironist.

I plan to buy mine at the local suburban HMV...ever the optimist. :roll: They probably didn't order it in order to accommodate extra space for "Twilight" T-shirts.
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
earl satz
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Sep 10, 2013 12:58 pm

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

Post by earl satz »

Hi, first time poster here, though I've lurked on the forum for a couple years, now. Thanks for having me! I'm writing this from the perspective of a former Elvis obsessive. I started buying his albums from Armed Forces (when it was first in the shops) and got every release as it came out up to and including WIWC. (I know nothing about music--academically or technically--so you can take the next statements with a grain of salt)
From WIWC onward I wasn't too enthused by what he was doing. The tunes seemed overwrought and the lyrics too obscure or removed (too many “he/she” songs as opposed to “I” for my taste). Of the post WIWC records I enjoy The River in Reverse. I eventually got North, My Flame Burns Blue, and The Delivery man. The only albums I've listened to in the last year have been RIR, Get Happy, TYM, and AF....and not that often.
This is all a preface to say I'm surprised how enthusiastic I am about WUG. Except for the last song, which I'm ambivalent about, I think these are among be the best vocals he's done. I like that there's none of the “insane ranting Elvis” of Luxembourg and Button your lip which he seems to put on record too often or the “crooner Elvis” whose voice quavers when he sustains notes at the edge of his range (like in If I could Believe). His delivery reminds me a bit of Beyond Belief throughout the first 11 songs and I love it. Musically, it's exciting as hell, especially the bass and drums. I haven't been able to stop playing it, and it's the first Elvis record that I can't play loud enough! Lyrically I'm really enjoying it (though I wish he would remove the filler word "just" from his vocabulary) I was never fond of She's Pulling out the Pin from DM. It struck me as one of his poorer metaphor songs. The new version on WUG has reversed itself in the context of the other songs: now I see it as a song about a suicide bomber first--not a ralationship song. That's a pretty neat trick how the surrounding songs change how it's perceived (by me, at least).
jardine
Posts: 801
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2010 12:59 pm

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

Post by jardine »

amazon.com. Top Ten.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

#6 in Music > Rock
#8 in Music > Pop

oh, and, hi earl, welcome from another long-time former lurker!
User avatar
docinwestchester
Posts: 2321
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:58 pm
Location: Westchester County, NY

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

Post by docinwestchester »

This reviewer, Jim Farber, knows his stuff:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... -1.1457632

Elvis Costello and The Roots, 'Wise Up Ghost'
Questlove streamlines Elvis Costello's sound with excellent results

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, September 17, 2013, 2:00 AM

Elvis Costello & The Roots
“Wise Up Ghost”
(Blue Note)
4 Stars

Elvis Costello plays well with others. On a wide range of albums, he has integrated his sound with musicians as massive, accomplished and disparate as Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Anne Sofie Von Otter and Allen Toussaint.

The Roots have proven just as adept as adapting. As the house band on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” they must mutate their sound nightly to match guest players from any style on the musical map.

If nothing else, that makes the new hook-up disc by Costello and Questlove’s band a meeting of chameleons. But is flexibility enough to create an apt sonic mean?

In this case, we get far more than that. “Wise Up Ghost” contains some of the most fleshy and smart work of either act’s career. It’s a perfect nexus of talents, reining in Costello’s excesses while giving the Roots a new, literary context.

For Elvis, “Wise Up Ghost” provides a virtual fountain of youth. It’s the youngest, hardest sound he has put forth in years. The Roots’ hip-hop chops provide the elixir. Their hugely funky beats provide a corollary to Costello’s rougher rock-and-soul years. The pitched dynamic best recalls the one Costello forged on 1980’s “Get Happy,” when he provided an eccentric, English reinterpretation of the Tamla-Motown sound.

For this mix, Elvis hasn’t gone hip-hop (thank God). He simply connected Questlove’s taut, sharp beats — a clear product of today — to his own erudite sensibility.

The band’s nuanced attention to rhythm corrects Costello’s tendency to over-elaborate his melodies. The Roots streamline him, grounding his high-flying lyrics in the groove. And amazing grooves they are.

“Walk Us Uptown” uses the complex distortions and rich bass of hip-hop to create an otherworldly cool. “Refuse to Be Saved,” with its ’70s clavinet, has a fat-bottomed funk drawing on the noise hooks of the avant-garde. Many songs employ strings in ways as innovative as Curtis Mayfield or Isaac Hayes found on their forward-thinking soul recordings.

The striking and sophisticated use of rhythm in no way eclipses the CD’s melody. The hardest songs have tunes you can sing, like the sumptuous, R&B ballad “Tripwire.” Even the monochromatic melody of the title track rivets. Lyrically, the album may paint things black, spewing one dire social and political pronouncement after another. But the music sweetens the dread with excitement.

Is it too soon to ask for an encore?
User avatar
pophead2k
Posts: 2403
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2003 3:49 pm
Location: Bull City y'all

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

Post by pophead2k »

Five complete listens, love it. Stone classic for me. Some of the music is incredibly exciting. The pocket they are in on Sugar Won't Work is just fabulous for me. Definitely a taste of my beloved Meters from New Orleans on that one. Agree with some of the above reviews/comments about Elvis' incredibly restrained vocal performance. I feel it really makes the lyrics stand out. I'll probably listen five more times today.
User avatar
strangerinthehouse
Posts: 311
Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:14 pm
Location: fort myers florida

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

Post by strangerinthehouse »

I'm still waiting for the vinyl/CD from Amazon and it hasn't shipped yet, though I guess that's my fault for opting for free shipping. Still, I was disappointed when I went to download the digital version (the autorip) of the deluxe CD to find that it didn't include the bonus tracks.

Thankfully, Spotify included them and I was able to hear them on my way to work. "Puppet" and "Can You Hear Me?" are killer B-sides, I think, but I'm glad they're not part of the whole album.

"Can You Hear Me?" was especially cool, a building on the background grove of "Radio Silence" to include bits from "Complicated Shadows" and other songs. It's kind of muddled but it was an intriguing listen before dawn this morning with a bit of fog which suited the song's haze.
And you try so hard
to be like the big boys
@shellacandvinyl
User avatar
strangerinthehouse
Posts: 311
Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:14 pm
Location: fort myers florida

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

Post by strangerinthehouse »

Also, has anybody seen Metacritic?

http://www.metacritic.com/music/wise-up ... -the-roots

It's one of the best reviewed albums this week.
And you try so hard
to be like the big boys
@shellacandvinyl
sweetest punch
Posts: 5963
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
Location: Belgium

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

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.hitfix.com/news/elvis-costel ... bum-review

Elvis Costello & The Roots, 'Wise Up Ghost': Album Review

Colloboration haunts and grooves in equal measure

On “Wise Up Ghost,” Elvis Costello and the Roots make surprisingly compatible musical companions.

From the first jagged synthetic rhythms that open the sinister-sounding “Walk Us Uptown,” it’s clear that there’s something special happening that unfurls through the course of 12 tracks.

The British singer/songwriter, known for his often snarling observations, and the Philadelphia hip-hop collective find an immediate groove that plays to both their strengths: Costello’s trenchant, biting words and complex melodies and The Roots’ imaginative and creative song construction that pulls in a wide array of influences.

After Costello admired how The Roots would come up with clever arrangements when he played “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” on which The Roots are the house band, he and lead Root, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson decided to see what happened if they took their collaboration beyond the confines of late night television. And the answer is a moody, brooding, always rhythmic and always interesting album.

The first idea was to remake Costello’s songs, but that notion gave way to another: Costello took fragments of existing tunes and they were reworked into new songs for four tracks (The remaining eight are original, from-scratch compositions). For example, the gorgeous “Tripwire,” easily the album’s gentlest, most swaying track, comes from a sample of 1989’s “Satellite.” But like almost all of the songs here, the melody may sound upbeat, but delve into the words and there’s a snarled mess of deceit.

While “Tripwire” may be melodically sweet as a lullaby, many of the other tracks are paved with wicked beats and grooves. The Rufus-like funk on “Refuse To Be Saved” (which features some lyrics from 1991’s “Invasion Hit Parade”) has Costello sounding a little like Dylan during a spoken word segment, as he’s surrounded by horns and a skittering electronic beat. Like many of the tracks here, “Refuse” starts as one thing and completely morphs into another.

The mid-tempo “Sugar Won’t Break” is probably the most Costello-like solo track here, but the Roots still give it a bottom heavy bass funk that grounds it down to the cellar.

Along with co-producer Steve Mandel, Costello and the Roots handle each track with such confidence, no matter the style, that can only come with years of experience, and heaps of talent, but also from being students of music. Whether they’re referencing Curtis Mayfield or Sly & The Family Stone, Tower of Power or Dr. John, there’s a respect for the music that they’re drawing from that shines through every crevice. Each note builds on the next and even when the tracks get busy with layers of horns or strings (although some of them remain quite austere), each instrument or loop comes through clearly.

Costello and The Roots (minus MC Black Thought, who’s not on the album) and great studio musicians pretty much fill in all the spaces here, but La Mirasoul from Los Angeles band La Santa Cecilia shows up to add some Latin spice to the languid, sexy “Cinco Minutos Con Vos.”

Both Costello and The Roots have proved to be play well with others in their myriad other collaborative outings, but this may set a new standard for both acts to meet going forward.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
User avatar
John
Posts: 800
Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2003 5:52 am
Location: North of England

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

Post by John »

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/album-rev ... ther-songs

The Roots & Elvis Costello
Wise Up Ghost And Other Songs

While they largely reside in separate spaces, Questlove and Costello are perfect counterparts in their musical zaniness, making "Wise Up Ghost" a triumph.

Early in his recent memoir, Mo Metta Blues, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson admits to writing reviews of his own albums as a way of pre-screening or even projecting what he’s about to offer the world.

lay out the page just like it’s a Rolling Stone page from when I was ten or eleven,” he writes. “It’s the only way I really know how to imagine what I think the record is. And as it turns out, most of the time the record ends up pretty close to what I say it is in the review.” This is the context in which Thompson thinks about his music; even when manipulating the dance floor, he’s thoughtful. His posturing is inward and intellectual in lieu of stripped away arrogance and he’s infectiously interested. Of course, Questlove alone isn’t The Roots, but particularly when collaborating with an outside artist for a one-off album and without Black Thought directly attached, Ahmir Thompson is an obvious conductor.

Wise Up Ghost was sparked by Costello’s numerous appearances beginning last year on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” where The Roots are the house band. On “Late Night,” the band offers up a punchy character of its own (they slyly played “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” by Fishbone for Michelle Bachmann’s entrance when she appeared on the show during her 2012 campaign for the Republican primary) as much as it is acts as a celebrity musical guest unto itself.

Still, it’s a testament to The Roots’ flexibility and positioning that a full-length collaboration with an English New Wave singer/songwriter can remain understated and natural. The album begins with the lead single “Walk Us Uptown” and what sounds like a melodic ink jet printer in action. The song, like much of the rest of the album, is delightfully deconstructable; the Reggae-tinged guitar strokes and an aggressive walking bassline are grounded by Questlove’s crispy beat. The record is consistently peppered with fleeting sounds entering and promptly exiting that beg for further consideration; on “Walk Us Uptown,” one of the most gratifying guitar riffs is delicate and off-centered, a lead-worthy part in the margins. The single is also as good an example of Costello’s lyricism as the album provides. “Will you walk us uptown / While our tears run in torrents / To suffer in silence or pray for some solace / Will you wash away our sins / In the cross-fire and cross-currents / As you uncross your fingers / And take out some insurance.”

“Sugar Won’t Work,” is the first real glimpse of the album’s string arrangements, as the track opens with a floating and melancholy set of orchestration. The strings are broken up by Questlove’s simple beat and a groovy, almost Garage Rock, raw guitar riff. The orchestration is a product of arranger Brent Fischer, who has also been tasked with arranging strings on D’Angelo’s yet-to-be-released third studio album. Fischer is the son of the notorious arranger Clare Fischer, who worked extensively with Prince as well as Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney and Cal Tjader. The strings on Wise Up Ghost are a worthy character of their own, and on “Sugar Won’t Work” in particular, they add drama to the refrain without feeling cheesy—an effect prototyped by Soul and Funk friendly arrangers like Johnny Pate of Curtis Mayfield association (and Superfly fame) and Gene Page of Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man.

Later, “Tripwire” is the first song to break the groove with its slow-paced lullaby verses and a chorus like a 1950’s Doo Wop infused Rock number (though the sultry horns are a more recent inflection). It is also the first song to centralize the vulnerability, rawness and general awkwardness in Costello’s voice and one of the better examples of the album’s spacing, as he sounds like he’s staged in front, an exposed front-man with sparse instrumentation literally right behind him. While Hip Hop fans might immediately shun a Roots album sans Black Thought, Costello’s lyrics are a signature in the poetic:

“Just because you don’t speak the language doesn’t mean that you can’t understand / The twist in the script of an insult / Scrawled on the back of your hand / Torn from the pages of scripture / Sprayed on a wall in the frays of a flag / Kisses forbidden on lips / And all of your fine clothes worn into rags.”

With “Tripwire” as a premature middle ground, the second half of the album is mostly groove-laden. Noticeably, “Stick Out Your Tongue” finds Costello revisiting lyrics from his own oddball 1983 solo record “Pills And Soap,” a track originally inspired by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s socially charged “The Message.” On the original, Costello sings atop a simple and definitively 1980’s drum machine loop and keyboard riff while “Stick Out Your Tongue” bubbles with more density and a restrained urgency as the instrumentation. Later Costello’s singing pans from one channel to the other (a short break about two minutes in even seems to reference the electro stylings of the original’s inspiration). The song is a veiled political criticism analogizing animal abuse and testing (hence the title) that holds as much weight in 21st century America as it did 30 years ago directed at Margaret Thatcher’s conservatism.

“Come The Meantimes” may be the album’s obvious highlight with its beat built from a knocking snare (Questlove is endlessly tapping the hi-hat with sixteenth notes as well), an almost wailing background noise, ringing bells and a staccato plucked string riff. With its immediate momentum it is the kind of song that’s hard to imagine ending; instead of looping back on itself, and even when all but the drums and a distorted guitar abruptly cut out, it feels like the band is incessantly lurching forward. It is also one of Costello’s most cynically terse lyrical compositions when he sings, “Will you still be cursing me / On my anniversary?” and what seems like an ongoing Jesus referencing refrain: “He came back, (right back) / And nobody blinked / He came back (right back) / At least I think that he did / He came back (right back) / Then he ran and he hid / And he muttered and moaned / And said ‘Let’s go get stoned.’”

While they largely reside in separate spaces, Questlove and Costello are perfect counterparts in their musical zaniness. Still, instead of an album that requires a sit down they’ve struck the careful balance of both immediately gratifying and study worthy. The addition of longtime Roots engineer and general collaborator Steve Mandel (who also worked on D’Angelo’s Voodoo) and arranger Brent Fischer round out the mix, and it’s hard to imagine the Blue Note released record without either of them attached. As a result, Wise Up Ghost feels like a triumph both in its setup and execution. It is not a Hip Hop record with Costello as a visitor nor a project that finds The Roots stretching; instead, it’s an exercise in adaptability. Its legacy will be less a product of what section it finds itself in a record store than it is a reflection of the commonly arrived upon realization that there are only two types of music in the world, good and bad. Take it or leave it, Wise Up Ghost is great.
sweetest punch
Posts: 5963
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
Location: Belgium

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

Post by sweetest punch »

http://bostonherald.com/entertainment/m ... w_with_old

Elvis Costello, Roots season new with old

Very clever, Elvis. Very clever, indeed.

Elvis Costello and the Roots looked to hip-hop’s dependence on samples for their collaborative album “Wise Up Ghost,” out today. But the songs the unlikely pair steal from are Costello’s own. They re-purposed bits of obscure Elvis compositions (“Satellite,” “You Left Me in the Dark” and others) into bridges or backbones for new tunes.

Both artists have covered plenty of artistic ground over their careers, but “Wise Up Ghost” treads foreign lands. As in hip-hop, beats, strings and horns jaggedly accentuate hooks. But these hooks are often jazzy, down-tempo drones (“Viceroy’s Row,” the title track). In the rare moments of pure pop melodies, the ballad “Tripwire” being the best example, the lyrics are dark and dense.

This album is an enigma worth puzzling over during repeat listens.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
User avatar
John
Posts: 800
Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2003 5:52 am
Location: North of England

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

Post by John »

http://www.kentucky.com/2013/09/17/2827 ... o-and.html

Critic's pick: Elvis Costello and The Roots, 'Wise Up Ghost'
By Walter Tunis — Contributing Music Writer

"Why is your face drawn on so glum, old chum?" So ponders Elvis Costello near the end of his new, noir-like summit with The Roots, Wise Up Ghost.

Given the groove-centric but decidedly downcast tone of the record, all kinds of answers could be devised for such a query. The song from which it comes, The Puppet Has Cut His Strings (one of the three tunes tacked onto the record's deluxe edition), speaks of askew and largely unwelcome liberation — meaning death, perhaps. It could also be a song of departure or abandonment ("the crowd went home and left you for dead, my old woodenhead").

Whether he is puppet or puppeteer, Costello is singing about solitude — the kind of tough-love solitude that forges strength. That's quite a curious sentiment for a record so musically juiced by collaboration.

It's easy when listening to Wise Up Ghost to savor an abundance of largely understated grooves peppered by The Roots' funereal R&B and jazz touches. They abound in arrangements that lovingly encourage subtle horn arrangements while sampling bits of previous Costello songs.

One of the record's most fascinating mash-ups, Stick Out Your Tongue, is a rewrite of 1983's deliciously creepy Pills and Soap. Here, a dirge-like recitation of lyrics mingle with Roots impresario ?uestlove's loop-like keyboard-and-drum groove before a splash by horns and mantra-like background vocals complete the song's fashionable rebirth.

Wise Up Ghost is a record that regularly keeps the listener guessing. Two of its opening tunes (Sugar Won't Work and Refuse to Be Saved) have sentiments that seem seething. That might seem like a welcome mood swing from the warmer cast of recent Costello records. But then we hit Tripwire. A bona fide Costello classic sung like an R&B lullaby, it seeks and then forsakes forgiveness with a trigger finger on the polarity that has become frighteningly topical in almost any culture ("Torn from the pages of history, repeated again and again and again. You're either for us or against us. That's how the hatred begins.")

There are echoes here of several previous Roots albums. But given the band's vast (yet organic) stylistic reach, Wise Up Ghost becomes something of a playground — from the way organ echoes about the retro-soul bounce of the truly frightening Walk Us Uptown to the more elemental drive behind the dangerously fenced-in funk of (She Might Be a) Grenade.

Ultimately, though, Costello rules the Roots' roost on Wise Up Ghost like a modern-day Rod Serling. He is half host, half henchman on one of the year's most satisfying but unsettling groove adventures.
Neil.
Posts: 1576
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2005 6:14 am
Location: London

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

Post by Neil. »

sheeptotheslaughter wrote:
John wrote:Very disappointed - my order with WOW HD for the deluxe edition is now showing as a back order (out of stock) - :x
Mine is the same. Won't be using them again
I've never heard the phrase 'back order' - how do you know it means 'out of stock'? However, like you guys, mine hasn't despatched yet, apparently! A sign on the page says 'expected to ship 7-10 days'. Glurk!
User avatar
noiseradio
Posts: 2295
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:04 pm
Location: Dallas, TX
Contact:

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

Post by noiseradio »

Loving this album. It arrived Monday night (thank you Amazon Prime!) and I played it twice last night. I have listened to it three times today. Gets better with every listening. I am not bothered at all by the re-purposed lyrics. In fact, on a couple of tracks, I think the Roots music is an improvement.

Pophead, I figured you would notice the Meters influence. I am just proud to have caught it, too.

My only problem is trying to figure out which songs Oliver's Army will start covering.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--William Shakespeare
sweetest punch
Posts: 5963
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
Location: Belgium

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

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mu ... 8935.story

Album review: Elvis Costello & the Roots' assured 'Wise Up Ghost'

Few musical pleasures are as satisfying as an eloquent artist with a sharpened pen and bitter tongue delivering perfectly pitched poison -- especially if the songwriter name-checks Disco-Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes and cites soldiers “playing their Doors records and pretending to be stoned.” It doesn’t hurt if the band propelling these darts is the Roots.

Bitterness and Elvis Costello, how sweet the sound. On “Wise Up Ghost,” the musician's powerful new collaboration with the hip-hop group (and “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” backing band), the artist offers a dozen songs that tackle war, peace, dishonor, disappointment and strife. A record that pops with urgency, it’s a journey into the world of big-picture alienation, one that highlights the little lives trying to survive amid the chaos.

Costello has long been an expert at searing singalong indictments, but he’s seldom been prone to violence. From the first to the last, though, Costello delivers songs that suggest a writer with damage on his mind. He plants a grenade in the hand of a bride in “(She Might Be a) Grenade.” In “Cinco Minutos Con Vos,” he and guest vocalist La Mirasoul of La Santa Cecilia sing of sirens that wail and bullets that hail, of drones and “triangle tears.” “Viceroy's Row” describes a man who “made a fortune out of barbed wire / In the last days of the empire.”

The structure from which Costello hurls his indictments is equally fortified. Filled with melodic and lyrical quotes from other Costello songs, the artist and band plant enough Easter eggs to excite the most avid fan. “Stick Out Your Tongue” is kin to his gem “Pills & Soap.” “Tripwire” sees the band harnessing the melody from Costello's “Satellite” in service of a new work about war: “Torn from the pages of history / Repeated again and again and again / You’re either for or against us / And that is how the hatred begins.” The heavy snare sound that kicks off “Walk Us Uptown” pops throughout the album; washes of strings and horns dot songs with Stax-like urgency.

“Gather some stones and make them atone,” sings Costello on “Come the Meantimes,” a line that captures the essence of “Wise Up Ghost.” A heavy work both thematically and musically, it shows one of the great songwriters of the last three-plus decades at yet another artistic peak. If you've ever fallen in love with a Costello record, be prepared for a new obsession.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
Posts: 5963
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
Location: Belgium

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

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainm ... ction.html

'Wise Up Ghost,' an Elvis Costello/Questlove connection

On the surface, the intergenerational partnership of Elvis Costello and the Roots - whose new album, Wise Up Ghost (Blue Note 1/2), comes out Tuesday - might seem an odd coupling.

After all, the 59-year-old, still-prolific songwriter is British, and the Late Night With Jimmy Fallon house band, anchored by 42-year-old drummer-producer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, is Philadelphian. He's white, they're black. They're hip-hop, he's rock.

They have more in common than immediately meets the ear, however. Both Costello (who plays a sold-out show at the Merriam Theater on Nov. 10) and the Roots are serious-minded musical omnivores, and serial collaborators. He has worked with Allen Toussaint, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Burt Bacharach, with whom he's currently writing an opera. The Roots have previously made full-length albums with John Legend, Betty Wright, and Jay Z, and demonstrate their wide-ranging dexterity five nights a week on Fallon.

Wise Up Ghost wears its ambition on its black-and-white album cover design, a homage to City Lights Books' 1956 edition of Allen Ginsberg's Beat Generation salvo Howl and Other Poems. That's an overreach not entirely out of character for the artist born Declan MacManus, who after all had the cheek to rename himself after the king of rock-and-roll.

When Costello and the Roots first got cracking on Wise Up Ghost - after the singer, who lives in New York, had made several guest appearances on Fallon - they contemplated simply reinterpreting the Brit singer's vast catalogs.
There apparently were too many fresh ideas percolating to settle for that. But the 12 songs, which marry the band's lean boom bap, punctuated by stabs of horns and keyboards, with the singer's close-miked, impressively limber vocals, do pointedly draw from Costello's past.

Wise Up Ghost is by no means a conventional hip-hop album - EC does not rap, and Roots emcee Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter is nowhere to be heard. But Costello, Thompson, and coproducer Steven Mandel freely pull from the singer's past, digging through the crates of his oeuvre.

So the elegantly ominous "Tripwire" mixes like instrumentation with a sample from "Satellite," from Costello's 1989 Spike, and the snap-to-attention funk "Sugar Won't Work" adds an excerpt of "You Left Me in the Dark" from 2003's North. And longtime fans will note that the seething "Stick Out Your Tongue" is a retooled take on the 1983 Falklands War protest song "Pills & Soap" in disguise.

The song snakes around dark alleys of desire and recrimination, and Costello sounds thoroughly enlivened by the opportunity to surround his noir, mysteriously encoded lyrics with as richly rhythmic a backdrop as that so skillfully provided by the Roots.

(Much of the album was recorded in the rehearsal space on the Fallon set. "Once we began to work, I was in a studio no bigger than a large cupboard," Costello told the Daily Mail. "Never mind the new album, what we really need to consider is whether Questlove should be the next Doctor Who. He works in such a confined space I think he is actually a Time Lord.")

Wise Up Ghost is not a flawless record; the title track is stilted and grandiose. But most everything, from the bilingual "Cinco Minutos Con Vos," featuring a vocal by La Marisoul from the Los Angeles band La Santa Cecilia, to the gorgeously vindictive "Viceroy's Row," comes together seamlessly. Down on the lower right corner, the Wise Up Ghost album cover mimics the Howl design in announcing it is Number One in a series. A sequel would be welcome.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
sweetest punch
Posts: 5963
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
Location: Belgium

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

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2 ... ost-1.html

Elvis Costello and The Roots: Wise Up Ghost

Elvis Costello long ago realized that, his legacy as a songwriter having been secured, he can embrace pet projects that can take him out of his comfort zone without putting a dent in his reputation.

As one would expect with these outside-the-box efforts, the results are incredibly varied. Costello can frustrate (his neo-classical works and collaboration with a string quartet) as often as he can thrill (his still-engaging pop album with Burt Bacharach). The great news is that Wise Up Ghost, the full-length co-mingling of Costello’s talents with that of The Roots, falls strongly into the former category.

Bolstered by one of the best and often most daring groups working today, the 59-year-old singer/songwriter is able to use all of his vocal guises. He evokes the bruised crooner on the gorgeous album closer “If I Could Believe,” the angry (once) young man on lead single “Walk Us Uptown” and the deliriously funky “Refuse To Be Saved,” and even tries his hand at some Smokey Robinson-esque quiet storm action on “Tripwire.”

The surprise comes from how easily Costello’s somewhat reedy voice melds into the soupy mix of Dilla-inspired soundscapes and disco string-stabs cooked up by the Roots. The late-night TV house band and hip-hop provocateurs don’t change their approach to playing one iota, riding steady grooves into the sunset and dabbing them with mischievous touches like the front-desk bell that chimes in throughout “Come The Meantimes” or Questlove’s meandering percussion on the title track.

That this collaboration would end up working so well should really be of little surprise to longtime fans of Costello. His ‘70s and ’80s work often bore the influence of the same R&B, soul and funk records that the Roots clearly adore. But via the Attractions or any of his other backing bands, those forces were often swallowed up beneath a maelstrom of pub-rock antics and Phil Spector-style productions. Without such concerns, Costello simply settles into the deep pocket of these heated instrumentals and gets good and comfortable. Here’s hoping the “Number One” emblazoned on the front cover means more work like this is forthcoming.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
Post Reply