SEXY SONGS ABOUT SCARY TOPICS: "WISE UP GHOST AND OTHER SONGS" ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ROOTS

"WISE UP GHOST AND OTHER SONGS"
ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ROOTS
Produced by Elvis Costello, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Steven Mandel
Released September 17, 2013

I vehemently believe that we all have Jimmy Fallon to thank for this one!

"Wise Up Ghosts And Other Songs," the incredibly fruitful collaboration between Elvis Costello and The Roots, forged from Costello's frequent guest appearances on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," on which hip-hop's legendary The Roots serves as Fallon's world class house band, is undeniably one of music's most unexpected creative mergers. Thankfully, these two idiosyncratic musical entities are more superbly aligned than it may seem on the surface of their respective musical genres and leanings. For fans of Elvis Costello, this album represents yet another unrepentant musical curve ball in the long, passionately creative artistic journey of his 35 year plus career. For fans of The Roots, this album is a blessing, as well as an artistic lesson to all in our success obsessed, instant gratification fueled times. What could have truly been a "retirement gig" with Jimmy Fallon (as drummer/producer/songwriter/bandleader/author Questlove himself once worriedly mused for himself and his band), The Roots have utilized this period and their position as a launching pad for their complete artistic rebirth and ascension as "Wise Up Ghosts And Other Songs" represents another high point, equaling the new bars set by their dark concept album "undun" (released December 2, 2011) and "Wake Up!" (released September 21, 2010), their brilliant, audaciously realized collaboration with John Legend. For fans of music itself, this album is unquestionably one of the very best music releases of 2013.

As Elvis Costello has expressed himself, the music collected upon "Wise Up Ghost And Other Songs" is a series of "sexy songs about scary topics." I would dare any music writer or journalist to arrive at any description that is better suited than that one as this new album is as provocative as it is disturbing. With titles like "Tripwire," "(She Might Be A) Grenade," and especially "Come The Meantimes," this album is representative of the turbulent era in which we live, an era in which love feels futile (as expressed in the succulent "Sugar Won't Work"), where individual and societal spiritual decay is rampant and the threat and/or reality of violence, be it verbal, emotional or physical, intimate or wide reaching, real or imagined, is frighteningly imminent. "Wake Up Ghosts And Other Songs" feels like the fuse of a terrifying powered keg being lit.

The album begins with a quartet of songs that confidently strut by on streetwise swagger in both musical and lyrical attitude, but the increasingly grim stage is indeed being brilliantly set. "Walk Us Uptown," sounds as if the disciples themselves are wracked with doubt and guilt as they simultaneously support and goad their own leader ("Will you wash away our sins/In the cross-fire and cross currents/As you uncross your fingers and take out some insurance"). The defiant "Refuse To Be Saved," is a propulsive horn driven middle finger to the heavens from an individual ferociously unconvinced of finding salvation while surrounded by the ugliness of the material world. "Wake Me Up" is sneaky, shuffling, hushed spiritual lament ("In the name of the Father and the Son/In the name of Gasoline and a Gun/Wake me up, wake me up...") which sonically reminded me a little bit of the music of Isaac Hayes when he was supported by The Bar-Kays. With imagery of tolling bells, blowing horns, falling walls, an Easter day slaughter, thrown stones forcing atonement and cries of "He came back!," which are met with yawn inducing indifference, religious symbolism is ever present throughout "Wise Up Ghost And Other Songs" but Costello and The Roots engage us from the opening moments of the album

The album's midpoint arrives with a pair of sermons, which would soothe the soul if they weren't so sobering unstable. In the aforementioned "Tripwire," which sounds like a lullaby merged with a slow jam, Costello informs us that "Just because I don't read the language/Doesn't mean that I'm blind to the threat," warns us not to "open the door 'cos they're coming/ Don't open the door 'cos they're here" and reminds us that within for and against politics, "that is how the hatred begins." Continuing with The unsettling quiet and communion themed "Stick Out Your Tongue," Costello instructs us to "drink down the venom" as "the sugar-coated pill is getting bitterer still." 

As "Wise Up Ghost And Other Songs" reaches its final third, the music grows more seductive as the overall tempestuous mood builds gradually, enveloping the entire album with an encroaching sense of doom. The outstandingly sparse and incredibly well arranged "(She Might Be A) Grenade," with its repeated refrains of "she's pulling out the pin," is one of the album's standout tracks. While the song weaves a striptease slow spell, to my ears, Questlove's opening snare drum roll functions as the winding of a time bomb clock and his ensuing bracing and simplistic drum pattern serving as the relentless ticking until it pauses for an open hi-hat only to resume ticking again. The effect is Hitchcock-ian. "Cinco Minutos Con Vos," a slinky duet with singer La Marisoul escalates the erotic/violence storminess even further. And despite how enveloping those cooing harmony backing vocals are, it is highly advised that you do not take a journey to "Viceroy's Row," where Costello provides a series of grim vignettes that take place "In the crack of hours where all of the nightmares go."  

With the arrival of the album's title track, a song which made me think of The Beatles' "A Day In The Life" (not in regards to the sound but more to the emotions stirred), the apocalypse has materialized. All of the music's quiet intensity blows wide open into a swirling frenzy while Costello's vocal remain frighteningly restrained instead of growing more melodramatic. Perhaps, it was all inevitable, especially as that refrain of "she's pulling out the pin" makes a hellish return. But the real anguish announces itself with the album's final track "If I Could Believe," a shattering ballad which may return us to the mind of the defiant atheist of "Refuse To Be Saved" finding himself either awakening from gripping night terrors or fully awake in a newly unrecognizable world or even in his final moments recalcitrant to the bitter end.

If timing is indeed everything, there is no time better than right now for "Wise Up Ghosts and Other Songs" given the terror contained in our times. Despite Elvis Costello's rowdy rave ups of his early albums and the roof raising jams provided by The Roots in their past work, this album is no mere collection of party songs and jaunty musings augmenting Costello's peerless wordplay. This is a dark, disturbing, challenging album filled from start to finish with musical and lyrical juxtapositions, blistering soul searching, sharply acerbic wit, those aforementioned Biblical allegories and supremely sinister rhythms that subversively marches us all towards a seemingly unavoidable doomsday and also finds an endlessly inventive middle-ground between the genres of rock, jazz, hip-hop, blues and even torch songs.

I cannot impress upon you enough how surprisingly perfect a fit the various musical genres between Elvis Costello and The Roots are. So much so, that it is truly amazing that they have not attempted this musical communication sooner. The world of hip-hop seems to be natural fit for a wordsmith like Elvis Costello and as he references his own past lyrics (from songs like "Pills And Soap," "Impatience" and "I Don't See Me In Your Eyes Anymore") in a few songs through the album. It is as if he has taken the sampling technique and utilized it in the way that works perfectly for his musical aesthetics. As for The Roots, they have again proven themselves to be an untouchable collective of musicians as their soundscapes perfectly merge and enhance Costello's lyrics, masterfully providing the aural template and setting for this precarious world. In addition to The Roots, Costello accompanies himself on a variety of instruments as well as his own harmony backing vocals. But special mention much go to Brent Fischer, son of the late composer Claire Fischer who shared a longstanding musical collaboration with Prince, who has provided equally evocative orchestrations throughout "Wise Up Ghost And Other Songs." And for all of the instrumentation, all participants involved have ensured that the album is not an over-produced, cluttered affair always allowing the listener to hear the space between the instruments, the notes, the sounds and the words, an effect which subsequently allows the mood and tension to develop naturally and with profound menace.

In my posting for Nine Inch Nails' latest release "Hesitation Marks," I remarked that the music sounded as if mastermind Trent Reznor was releasing his inner demons on the dance floor of his grim discotheque. With "Wise Up Ghosts And Other Songs," we could venture to just around the corner from that discotheque to a smoky yet equally grim nightclub where spirits are constantly in some stage of torment. Where Costello's lyrics and singing represents the inner turmoil, the snap of Questlove's formidable drums with the insistent, captivating grooves and sonic textures created by guitarist "Captain" Kirk Douglas, bassists Pino Palladino and Mark Kelley and keyboardists Ray Angry, Kamal Gray and James Poyser, keep our bodies moving so as not to end it all at the wrong end of shattered shards of glass.

Please, dear readers and listeners, do not be swayed away from this album due to its deeply troubling conceptual textures. Elvis Costello and The Roots' "Wise Up Ghost And Other Songs" is adult music for a very adult time presented with high artistry and top notch musicianship making for a creative alchemy that is in increasingly short supply these days.

DJ'S CODA:
If you are interested or if I have swayed you towards this album, please allow me to further recommend that you seek out the deluxe edition of the album which boasts three more songs entitled "My New Haunt," "Can You Hear Me?" and "The Puppet Has Cut His Strings." While these tracks do not quite fit into the overall concept of the album, they are no mere cast offs and are highly worthy of your time, attention and enjoyment.