• "A LARUM IS, WELL, IT'S MIDDLE ENGLISH FOR 'ALARM,' ...I CHOSE THE TITLE FOR A COUPLE OF REASONS. IN SHAKESPEARE, YOU OFTEN SEE 'A LARUM' TO INDICATE SOME SORT OF RUCKUS GOING ON OFFSTAGE -- AND OFFSTAGE WAS WHERE REAL LIFE WAS TAKING PLACE.  ALSO, THE LARUM WOULD BE THE WARNING BELL IN EVERY TOWN, AND THEY'D RING IT IN TIMES OF SIEGE AND DISEASE, WHICH I THINK IS APPROPRIATE FOR WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW." -- JOHNNY FLYNN

To preview tracks from A Larum, please check HERE.

Proving you don’t need a Southern drawl and a Stetson to head down dusty American trails in Johnny Flynn, an impossibly talented young homegrown singer.

His music is steeped in country, blues, folk and bluegrass traditions but his lyrics reveal a distinctly English slant. You wouldn’t catch them performing a song called Wayne Rooney in the honkytonks of Texas. Johnny’s voice is engaging, ideal for the storytelling nature of his songs. His band, the Sussex Wit, bristle with energy, horns and cello adding warmth and depth. In a music world full of surprises, Johnny is ripping up the rulebook in style.

"I think I almost got arrested in Jersey," Shelby Lynne told us during a recent phone interview.

OK, that got our attention.

"Well, I was singing on the airplane and somebody complained," Lynne said. "I think I’d had some cocktails. I was having a good time, and when I got off the airplane, they called [security]. And they weren’t too friendly."

Lynne is touring in support of her latest album, "Just a Little Lovin,’ÿ" a collection of Dusty Springfield covers. Lynne said she first got into Springfield in 1998, just one year before the British singer died. Someone slipped her a copy of one of Springfield’s albums. One spin and Lynne was hooked.

She said she tries to avoid covers in general, so the decision to put out this 10-track album — with no original material — didn’t come easy.

"I really put a lot of thought into it," Lynne said. "I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I did it out of respect for her."

The decision is paying dividends. According to Billboard.com, the album peaked at No. 41 on the Billboard 200, making it one of Lynne’s highest-charting discs of all time.

"Well, I don’t know anything about charts," Lynne said. "I’m really happy with it. I guess it’s doing OK. People seem to like it."

Storytelling, according to Lynne, is a big reason why she fell for Springfield’s work. Like Sinatra, Springfield is a "great interpreter." Lynne said she makes you believe what she’s selling.

When asked if she worried that covering someone else’s work would draw inevitable, unfavorable comparisons to the original material, Lynne got defiant.

"Well, I don’t think that that’s an issue," Lynne said.

There are still plenty of issues that ruffle Lynne’s feathers. She mouthed off during a performance at Stagecoach, a music festival in California, upset that the stage was so far from the crowd ("When I walked onstage, the people were two football fields away"). And as the line between country and pop becomes more blurry with each passing year, Lynne doesn’t know if she fits under the country umbrella anymore ("I don’t really consider country music what they consider country").

But Lynne loves playing live. And at Blend, she’ll have a much more intimate venue than the platform she had at Stagecoach.

"The most important thing about live performance is the audience," Lynne said. "And when the audience cannot be involved, then what’s the point of having it?"

» www.northjersey.com

Originally Momofuku was going to be released only on vinyl and digital download, an expression of Elvis Costello's frustration with the State of the Record Industry in 2008, but those plans soon changed, turning the album into a standard release yet not removing a sense of confusion surrounding its sudden appearance, as it arrived just after Costello publicly swore off ever recording again (or performing in the U.K., but that's another matter for another time). The very title of the record was a source of mystery, as it was suggested that it could perhaps be named after David Chang's string of N.Y.C. restaurants, but Costello clarified the situation by explaining that he and Chang shared a similar love of Momofuku Ando, the man who invented cup noodles. Such squawking over foodie arcana leaves little question that Momofuku the album exists where the air is rarefied but, as always with Elvis, words have meaning — as this record sprang to life in an instant, just like a bowl of ramen noodles. Invited to sing on Jenny Lewis' follow-up to Rabbit Fur Coat, an album he praised publicly, Costello arrived in a studio where half of his Imposters were already working on the record — along with Tennessee Thomas, the daughter of longtime Costello drummer Pete, and Lewis' boyfriend Johnathan Rice — and before long a couple of new Elvis originals were cut alongside the planned songs for Jenny, and that snowballed into the quickly written, quickly recorded, quickly released Momofuku.

That quicksilver speed is the key to Momofuku, and what separates it from all the albums Elvis Costello has cut in the decade since he signed with Universal. Almost every record from 1998's Painted from Memory on has had a conceptual thrust — even 2002's When I Was Cruel was designed as a back-to-basics record — but not this. It's merely a collection of 12 songs, all bashed out in a matter of weeks, not an album that's been labored over for months. Ironically enough, that rush of creative energy gives Momofuku a unified feel so it holds together as well, if not better, than such recent records as When I Was Cruel, which felt too deliberate in its classicism, or The Delivery Man, which was only wanting for the kinetic energy that this has in spades. That dynamic energy is down entirely to the speed of conception, how the record was cut in a short enough span so that Lewis, Rice, and Dave Scher (of Beachwood Sparks and All Night Radio) could lend harmonies throughout the record, lending a grace to the clattering "Turpentine." As the only female here, Lewis naturally stands out from the pack, but she's also given the opportunity to stand toe to toe with Costello, such as on the superb closer, "Go Away," as simple and addictive a song as he's written in years. Much of Momofuku is indeed this direct, at least in its construction — applying equally to the old-fashioned ballad "Flutter & Wow" as it does to such lean rockers as "American Gangster Time" — but the lyrics are as expertly crafted and wryly sophisticated as any latter-day Costello record. This sophistication can creep into the music as well, as the loungey puns of "Harry Worth," the clenched, dense rhythms of "Stella Hurt," and the cabaret shuffle of "Mr. Feathers" all recall a Spike recorded sans accoutrements. Again, that's where the speed of this whole enterprise works in its favor, as it makes these digressions seem funny, not fussy, and that's ultimately the charm of Momofuku: it captures a loose, natural Elvis Costello, somebody who hasn't been captured on record in years. It's still a Costello who plugs Lexus, writes operas, and plays jazz festivals, but here he's not trying to prove anything; he's just making music, and that's why it's one of his most enjoyable latter-day records.

» www.allmusic.com

There have been at least two defining moments in the career of Shelby Lynne, the sweet-singing country-soul singer from Alabama, where musical reinvention has launched her into new and uncharted musical waters.

The first metamorphosis came with the 2000 release of "I Am Shelby Lynne," which earned the singer a Grammy award for Best New Artist, despite her having recorded five albums on a minor record deal she received in Nashville at the age of 19.

The title of "Best New Artist" was appropriate, in some ways, as the album represented a departure from mainstream country music with Ms. Lynne beginning to draw on more of her soul and R&B influences—a move critics said made her seem more loose and at ease.

Around the same time, Ms. Lynne moved from the country music capital of Nashville to Palm Springs, California.

Ms. Lynne’s latest reincarnation, released earlier this year by Lost Highway Records, is titled "Just A Little Lovin’" and brings to life the music of British pop singer Dusty Springfield, who died in 1999 after a wildly successful career defined by soulful, emotionally charged recordings.

Ms. Lynne, 39, who will perform at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett on Thursday, July 3, said in a recent interview that her tribute to Ms. Springfield has been both exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. After a three-year journey filled with challenges and, ultimately, triumph, the album was released in January to critical acclaim, with one writer from The New York Times calling it "one fine singer’s homage to another."

"I didn’t mind the challenge because that’s what made it so much fun," Ms. Lynne said. "I think the first thing I had to do was to make sure the songs I chose were some of my favorite songs, because there’s a lot of responsibly when you’re cutting covers."

Produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Phil Ramone, "Just a Little Lovin’" is a compilation of nine of Ms. Springfield’s songs, drawn  mainly from the classic 1960s albums, "Dusty in Memphis" and "A Girl Called Dusty."

Lynne introduces a fresh approach to classics such as "Anyone Who Had A Heart," "Breakfast In Bed" and "You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me." Both singers brought a similar depth of emotion to the songs, but the overall sound of Ms. Lynne’s album represents a departure from the elaborate production layering of Ms. Springfield’s music. Ms. Lynne even included an original song, titled "Pretend," which blends perfectly into the album and serves as a reminder that Ms. Lynne is also very much an original.

"I think that if you put on my record and then put on a Dusty Springfield record there will be no need to compare," said Ms. Lynne said, who was first encouraged to record the album by her good friend, Barry Manilow.

Ms. Lynne said she was thrilled with the straightforward, almost quiet arrangements that Mr. Ramone helped craft for the album. The singer’s country roots are still very evident in the overall sound, and according to dozens of glowing reviews over the past six months, Ms. Springfield’s songs, written by such legends as Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Felix Cavaliere, come across in all their emotional complexity, only with the indisputable stamp of Ms. Lynne’s soulful voice and style leading the way.

"I can guarantee I will never do this again," Ms. Lynne said, laughing, but also completely serious at the same time. "I’m glad I did it, I’m proud I did it and I love the album. But I think every career is good for only one cover record, and this is it for me. It’s really kind of stressful."

Ms. Lynne will spend the next three months on the road, a place she finds much less nerve-racking. She will perform across the Northeast before heading south for concerts in Florida and Tennessee. The tour will end, appropriately, in Ms. Springfield’s home country of England.

"She’s the queen over there, but all I give a damn about is if they like the record," Ms. Lynne said. "I would hate to get the whole ‘who do you think you are?’ routine. But I think they understand I’ve made this record out of complete respect."

What is certain is that Ms. Lynne will be welcomed with open arms in Amagansett next weekend, at a venue where she’s played annually since 2000, the same year the heat turned up on her career for the first time with the release of "I Am Shelby Lynne."

"I’ve been there enough times to know it’s a wonderful place," Ms. Lynne said of the Talkhouse. "I love Amagansett and I love playing there. Without a doubt, it’s one of the favorite places for everyone in the band."

Shelby Lynne performs at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett on Thursday, July 3. For reservations or further information, call 267-3117.

» www.southamptonpress.com

Ryan Bingham grew up amid the ranching communities of West Texas and New Mexico and spent more than a decade riding bulls on the Southwestern rodeo circuit.

Now 26, Bingham has refashioned himself as an alt-country troubadour. First he found a sympathetic ear among an older generation of Texas singer-songwriter types including Terry Allen and Joe Ely. Last year he released Mescalito, which has earned steady buzz on the strength of vivid lyrics and world-weary vocals.

He fields a few short questions with some very short answers.

Q: Lots of reviews have described your voice as "whiskey-soaked" or "weary." What does it sound like to you?
A: Tired.

Q: What's the strangest place you've heard one of your songs?
A: A wedding.

Q: What's your favorite site to hear new music?
A: Record stores.

Q: The most embarrassing song on your iPod?
A: Happy Birthday.

Q: The first concert you attended?
A: Cypress Hill.

Q: Vinyl, CDs or MP3s — and why?
A: Vinyl. Scratchy, dusty and real.

Q: Which has more bull: the rodeo world or the music industry?
A: The music industry.

Q: Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus?
A: Who?

» www.chron.com

On August 19, Lost Highway will release Pass It Around, the new album from Donavon Frankenreiter. Pass It Around boasts 10 new songs from the musician/pro-surfer, and also features some special guests and a new approach for Frankenreiter.

On his 2006 self-produced Lost Highway debut, Move By Yourself, Frankenreiter set out on his own and began to find his musical identity as an artist as he moved away from the acoustic stylings of his 2004 self-titled debut by plugging in and opening up. Pass It Around shows that identity fully realized. The songs incorporate some of the acoustic and electric elements of his past recordings but infuse them with the musical wisdom he has gained along the way, plus the production of two-time Grammy Award-winner Joe Chiccarelli (White Stripes, Frank Zappa).

Frankenreiter even approached the songwriting process in a new way by co-writing for the first time. Donavon collaborated with the likes of Mike Daly (Whiskeytown), Grant Lee Phillips, Steve McQuien (Unamerican) and Thad Cockrell, to name a few.

The result is an album filled with soulful melodies, uplifting grooves and some lessons for life. From the punchy mariachi horns of “Your Heart” to the pop sensibilities of “Life, Love & Laughter” to the laid-back funk of “Hit The Ground Running” and “Too Much Water,” Pass It Around is a testament to Frankenreiter’s continuing evolution as an artist.

Pass It Around features Donavon’s band; Matt Grundy - bass, Eric Brigmond - keys and Craig Barnette – drums, along with special guests Ben Harper (on title track), G. Love (on “Sing A Song”) and Grant Lee Phillips, who co-wrote and performs on “Mansions In The Sand.”

» www.donavonf.com

For his 19th birthday, Simon Hamburg wanted only one present: a turntable for his dorm room at the University of Southern Mississippi. His father bought him a portable $69 model, and Hamburg's older brother chipped in LPs by Simon and Garfunkel and the Who. "Listening to 'Baba O'Riley' on vinyl is always better than listening to 'Baba O'Riley' on anything else," Hamburg says. "You can hear every instrument. It sounds stupid, but it's like you're feeling the music. You're part of it."

As CD sales continue to decline and MP3s are traded without thought, the left-for-dead LP is staging a comeback. In 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan, nearly 1 million LPs were bought, up from 858,000 in 2006. Based on to-date sales for 2008, that figure could jump to 1.6 million by year's end. (According to the Recording Industry Association of America, CD shipments dropped 17.5 percent during the same 2006-07 period.) Sales of turntables — which tumbled from 1.8 million in 1989 to a paltry 275,000 in 2006, according to the Consumer Electronics Association — rebounded sharply last year, when nearly half a million were sold.

From Bruce Springsteen's Magic and the Raconteurs' Consolers of the Lonely to Cat Power's Jukebox and Portishead's Third, it's now possible to buy vinyl versions of many major new releases at retailers like Best Buy, Amazon and indie record stores. And artists are making their preferences for vinyl known. Before releasing Consolers, the Raconteurs announced that they "recommend hearing it on vinyl." In April, Elvis Costello and the Imposters' Momofuku arrived first on LP, though it included a coupon for a free digital download (the CD version arrived weeks later). "Is it a revolution?" says Luke Lewis, president of Costello's label, Lost Highway. "Fuck, no. But our beliefs have been validated a little bit — not to mention we're making a couple more bucks. It's hard to do that now in the record business, you know."

"Everybody feels last year was a watershed year," says Cris Ashworth, owner of United Record Pressing, the Nashville plant that's one of the country's largest and few remaining. (Around a dozen exist now, down from more than twice that in the Eighties.) When he took over the business in 1989, Ashworth made only a little over $1 million in profit and barely had 10 employees. Today, he employs over 50 and profits have more than quadrupled, thanks to a surge in jobs that included Costello's LP along with pressings of Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero, Ryan Adams' Easy Tiger and independent-label products. "My son was very worried for 10 years," Ashworth says. "He kind of looked at me and shook his head and said, 'Dad, you just ain't livin'.' Now he says, 'Well, maybe Dad's a little bit smarter than I thought he was.'"

Despite the uptick, vinyl remains a niche market. Most new releases, indie or major, sell between 2,000 and 10,000 copies; recent bestsellers include Radiohead's In Rainbows (13,000) and Bob Dylan's 2004 Blonde on Blonde reissue (25,000). The possibilities of future growth are limited: As Matador general manager Patrick Amory says, "There's definitely a ceiling." And thanks to higher fuel prices (oil is used to manufacture plastic vinyl, and LPs are shipped by truck) and the scarcity of pressing plants, an LP can cost as much as $4.50 per unit to manufacture, compared to roughly a dollar for a CD. "There are still reasons not to do vinyl," says Mac McCaughan of Merge Records, which has seen an increase in sales of vinyl releases by Arcade Fire and Spoon. "It's more expensive, it's more complicated, it takes longer. We try not to lose money, but we probably are."

Although technological advances (like the CD) seriously wounded the LP, new technology is now playing a part in its resurgence. Old LPs can be converted to MP3s thanks to a new breed of turntables equipped with a USB port. Numark, one of the leading manufacturers of these models, produced them for club DJs and was surprised when the model took off; the company recently shipped its millionth unit.

Also abetting vinyl's homecoming is a growing disillusionment with CD and MP3 sound. The CD has long been known for its clean but overly bright (sometimes grating) audio. "With vinyl, the range is from accurate to warmer" when it comes to reproducing the original source material, says renowned mastering engineer Bob Ludwig, who has worked with everyone from Springsteen to Nirvana. "With digital, it's totally the opposite: accurate to brighter. The brightness in the digital domain is a sound our ears don't seem to like that much, whereas people don't seem to be bothered by the slight loss of top-end you might get with vinyl." (Ludwig, like others, does separate mastering sessions for CDs and LPs.) The compressed audio heard in MP3s has only exacerbated the trend in audio degradation. "It's taking 90 percent of the music and basically throwing it out," says Ludwig. "It takes the bad part of digital and makes it even worse."

Assuming a record is pressed under optimum conditions and played on a high-end system, vinyl can restore some of those missing sonic properties. When the Doors' Ray Manzarek listened to recent high-grade reissues of the band's original studio albums, he was stunned. "On 'Light My Fire,' the guitar and organ solos are like, 'Yeah, that's it — that's the way they're supposed to sound,'" Manzarek says. "Vinyl has a warmth and crispness without the edginess of CD."

There's also something less technical lurking behind vinyl's mini-renaissance. Whether it's inspecting a needle for dust or flipping the record over at the end of a side, LPs demand attention. And for a small but growing group, those demands aren't a nuisance. "There's nothing like putting the needle into the groove of a record," says country singer Shelby Lynne. "It's about as real as you can get. You got your vinyl, your weed, your friends, and while you're rollin', they're pickin' out another record. We're all taking music for granted because it's so easy to push a button. I mean, come on — music should be fun."

» www.rollingstone.com

The Awards ceremony will be held in Nashville on September 18 at the legendary Ryman Auditorium.

» www.nashvillewinepress.com

» www.earx-tacy.com

"The absence of much advance notice or information might seem a little strange and perverse but the record was made so quickly that I didn't even tell myself about it for a couple weeks," Elvis Costello told Billboard back on April 22, 2008 as he marked the vinyl release date of his newest album Momofuku.

According to the Billboard interview, the songs on Momofuku were inspired by the work Elvis did on Jenny Lewis’ upcoming solo record.

Costello works with the Imposters on Momofuku and the tone is fresh and exciting while still maintaining the base of their sound. By adding the harmonies of Jenny Lewis, who stepped over to help Costello, Momofuku is full and unreserved. Packed with elegant melodies and lots of toe-tapping goodness, this may well be one of the best records of the year.

With the album title serving as a tribute to Momofuku Ando, the inventor of the Cup Noodle, Costello and the Imposters wanted the tone of “just add water” to infuse the record and create an raw sound. The speed of the recording and the untreated character of the players work wonders, as each tune unfolds naturally, rapidly and vigorously.

That vigour is the driving force of Momofuku. The wonder of the record is how it works with such ease to create such depth. Made in six days in Los Angeles, it is truly a work of Ramen-esque proportions.

Costello comes across as tranquil and pleased, even when he’s storming through convincing near-polemics like “American Gangster Time” and “Stella Hurt,” both of which serve as charming visions into the sort of “putdown rock” that he can do so well.

Originally set for a release purely on vinyl, Momofuku eventually saw its CD release at the beginning of May. By the time it hit compact disc, the record and Costello’s cheekiness had garnered the recording a great deal of attention. While the CD is a more than satisfactory way to listen to this record, I can only imagine how much more the music would come alive through the cracks of vinyl.

Costello’s moving glimpse inward on “My Three Sons” goes to show how much the man has changed through time and with fatherhood. At 53, he sounds worn but far from worn out as he runs the gamut of emotions and stands as strong as ever in front of the Imposters.

“Turpentine” has an addictive melody and its almost uncontrollable joy threatens to pop out of the speakers and instigate some sort of jubilant riot in the living room. Costello certainly has softened the edges a little bit and, as such, he comes across as more intuitive and less self-conscious.

And so it is that Costello’s finest work in quite some time is an invigorating revelation of what happens when a group of amazingly talented musicians gather in a room and “just add water.” Momofuku is inventive, sharp, lively, and potent. It is a gorgeous piece of work that deserves repeated spins, preferably on a favourite record player. But hey, we take what we can get!

» blogcritics.org

» www.usatoday.com

Shelby Lynne's performance at the XPoNential Festival in Wiggins Park is only weeks away and we want you to know about an "early bird" ticket offer that is only valid until Monday, June 30. To purchase your tickets at the discounted rate, please follow this link.

4-Day Festival Pass
WXPN Members - $30 (reg. $40)
General Public - $40 (reg. $60)

Daily Tickets (Fri-Sun)
WXPN Members - $12 (reg. $17)
General Public - $20 (reg. $25)

Kids (ages 2-12)
Just $5 per day (anytime)


Shelby Lynne performs on Sunday, July 13th, on the River Stage from 6:20 - 7:10 PM. For a full schedule of the weekend's events, click here.

» xpn.org

» www.cbsnews.com

Bored at work? Hayes Carll is performing live at 3:00 PM PST (6:00 PM EST) and it’s for all of us online junkies! Mike Nesmith’s (yes, THAT Mike Nesmith) VideoRanch.com and KPIG in Freedom, CA will simulcast Carll’s performance for your listening enjoyment. You’ve got two ways to satisfy your Carll craving:

Visit www.videoranch.com and download the 3D Browser. It takes only a second and will be a trippy way to watch Hayes perform.

Not into downloading files? Then visit www.kpig.com this afternoon (June 18) and listen to the performance.

» www.kpig.com

As improbable as it might seem, the 30-something woman toiling over an open flame in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant may be able to quote Kant and could very well turn out to be a songwriter who receives a benediction from none other than Bob Dylan.

Take Mary Gauthier (pronounced Go-shay—she’s from Baton Rouge): Although her pre-songwriting days were mired in misadventure, drugs, and alcohol, the first act of Gauthier’s story nevertheless includes remarkable accomplishments, including five years studying philosophy at LSU and subsequently starting the successful Boston eatery Dixie Kitchen.

No songs, however, until sobriety at 35. But once pen hit paper, the rubber hit the road, and Gauthier has been traveling and writing songs ever since. Her clear-eyed focus of her passions has produced five acclaimed CDs of razor-sharp, intense, and sometimes funny material, not to mention a shout-out from His Bob-ness.

The endless ribbon of highway has brought her to the Rosendale Cafe before. Owner Mark Morganstern, an early supporter, says, "Sometimes a songwriter splits open your chest and does something memorable to your heart—that’s Mary Gauthier."

I caught up with Gauthier recently to talk about songs, God, and food. In support of Between Daylight and Dark, her latest effort, she returns to the Rosendale Cafe with Diana Jones on June 6, at 8pm. On June 14 at 9pm, Gauthier performs solo at Club Helsinki in Great Barrington. www.rosendalecafe.com; www.clubhelsinkiweb.com.

Your song "Mercy Now" made a real tough-nut friend of mine who’d just become a dad pull off to the side of the road and cry.
That’s my job.

There’s a real spiritual yearning in your material. Do you feel like the venue of the singer/songwriter in a secular culture is to find language to address spiritual concerns?
Yeah, but I don’t think of it in those big terms. I think of it as: My job is to help people see God. That’s the job of every artist, whatever the medium.

Your new song "Can’t Find The Way" sounds like an acceptance that we all are lost in some way. Do you think that we’re all perpetually looking for something and we need to find a way to bear questions rather than settle on answers?
That particular song is coming from the Carter Family tradition of "This World Is Not My Home" and Woody Guthrie’s "I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore." I think this is the third song of that trilogy, if I may be so bold. That’s what I’m aiming for: to be the voice of that sentiment for our time. We’re all just passing through.

There’s a lot of recitation in your songs. Has that always been a part of what you do?
Yeah, and I don’t know where that comes from. Maybe the Hank Williams/Luke The Drifter records from back when I was a kid in Baton Rouge. Some songs were meant to be sung and some were meant to be told.

Loss plays a big role in your material. Do you think as a culture we’re in need of more ways to express loss?

I’m never comfortable making big statements like that, because I don’t really honestly know. My job is to move really fast through time and space. I’m movin’, movin’, movin’ and writing, writing, writing. I don’t watch TV and I don’t spend a lot of time plugged into the culture. I’m more working at a folksinger level on the ground. So I don’t know the big answers. I don’t even see the big picture. I’m more likely to know what’s goin’ on at the airport.

I know personally when I write about loss it strikes a nerve in people and it resonates. They need it. They need someone to give them the words.

Singer-songwriter-producer Joe Henry [Solomon Burke, Ani DiFranco, Aimee Mann] produced Between Daylight and Dark and, in contrast to your last release, it’s mostly live in the studio. Was that his idea?
Yes. I just came in with the songs. It’s how he gets his best records—get the best band possible and just sing with the band. I like it a lot. It goes fast.

You did it in a week, right?
Yeah. I don’t like spending a month in the studio. It’s a false environment. I get real antsy. I wanna get goin’. I don’t like sittin’ in there trying to get everything perfect. I don’t care if it’s perfect. I just wanna get it down, have it be real, and Joe’s real good at that.

Do you ever miss being a restaurateur?
Not for one second, ever. [Laughs.]

How is creating a song akin to creating a dish? Are there similarities?
Very much so. The most important ingredient in both of `em is love.

» www.chronogram.com

» www.irishabroad.com

In his 28th studio album, Elvis Costello revisits the brash and angry territories of his first three albums, collaborates with country legends Loretta Lynn and Roseanne Cash and flirts with more genres than you can count on one hand. Still, you have to wonder, are these great songs or do they just remind you of great songs?

Costello reconvenes the Impostors for Momofuku, which is two-thirds of the way towards assembling the late 1970s to mid-1980s Attractions—and a big part of his best work. Steve Nieves, whose trilling Vox defined hits like “Pump It Up” and “(I Don’t Want to) Go to Chelsea” (and whose classically-influenced grand piano contributed sheen of refinement to later songs), is back and seemingly same as ever. Pete Thomas, behind the kit since 1977’s “Watching the Detectives” has returned to provide the pounding tension behind torrid “Turpentine”, the steady gospel swing of “Flutter and Wow”, the explosive rock rhythms of “No Hiding Place”. Davey Faragher, who joined for 2002’s back-to-rock When I Was Cruel, does some wonderfully subtle bass work, urgent and pulsing on “Drum & Bone”, Latin slinky on the undulating “Harry Worth”, full of sensual slides on “No Hiding Place”. And, then, of course, there is Costello himself, returning in fabulous, hoarsely sardonic voice, slashing away on every variety of guitar and slipping in the kind of intricate wordplay that led him to declare himself “rock and roll’s scrabble champion” in the early 1980s.

All of which means that Elvis Costello, 30 years on since “Less than Zero”, sounds very much like Elvis Costello, abrasively intelligent, rhythmically unstoppable, harsh and soulful at the same time and, er, able to leap genres in a single bound. “American Gangster Time”, the standout among this disc’s rock songs, is a dark-toned triumph, its pessimistic imagery (the song opens with a pretty woman on her knees exchanging sex for drugs) hitched to exuberant rock riffs and a soaring chorus. Nieves’ Vox Continental alone would be enough to transport you back in time 30 years, trilling and squealing above the melody, even without the complex image-heavy lyrics that Costello spits and stutters. And yet, here’s a question: if you didn’t already long for exactly that sound, due to layers of personal history and three decades of affiliation with the Elvis Costello enterprise, would it have the same impact? Would “American Gangster Time” stop you cold the way that “Accidents Will Happen” or “Red Shoes” or “Watching the Detectives did all those years ago? It’s hard to say, but I’m leaning towards probably not.

Hardcore first-three-albums fans will lock onto the first three tracks of Momofuku, which hew most closely to the classic new wave Elvis sound. Starting with “Harry Worth”—a loungy, Latin-rhythmed stalk through images of a ruined marriage ("He said, do you hear that noise? Well, that once was our song.")—the album turns more contemplative and slower, tapping into mid-period Costello fascinations with jazz, pop and country. There is a warm and touching song dedicated to Costello’s children ("My Three Song") and a scratchy soul ballad that is subtly, obliquely about the garden of Eden ("Pardon Me, Madam, My Name Is Eve"). Costello, a champion collaborator, brings in two of the first ladies of country to write lyrics for him, Roseanne Cash for the grand “Song With Rose” and Loretta Lynn for “Pardon Me, Madam, My Name Is Eve.” Dave Scher of the Beachwood Sparks sits in on pedal or lap steel in four of 12 cuts, lending an indefinable rural melancholy to the proceedings.

Scher is also one member of a high-profile vocal “supergroup”—others include Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice—whose airy wooh-oohs and aaahs dot otherwise raw and uncompromising songs. I have nothing against these artists, personally, as singers or as musicians, but they get in the way. “Turpentine” almost sinks under the weight of their embellishments, its raucous, guitar-and-drum frenzy slipping under a too-sweet doo-woppy refrain of “Turpentine....” You can admire Costello’s willingness to reach out to the next generation, to incorporate them into his work, but it doesn’t really work. If anything the backing vocals obscure his edge, and Elvis Costello’s edge is something worth preserving.

In the end, Momofuku is the kind of more-than-solid effort that reaffirms a great artists’ relevance, but doesn’t quite prove it all over again. It allows Elvis Costello to rampage over knotty rock tunes with a seasoned band, and to breathe soul and artistry into down-tempo meditations. It may not add a single classic to the 20 to 30 great songs under the Elvis Costello byline, but it reminds us of them, and that’s a good thing.

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