http://www.billboard.com/bb/feature/art ... id=1984395
Edited By Barry A. Jeckell. September 26, 2003, 12:01
AM
Costello Heads 'North' With Orchestrated Map
By Chris Morris
Elvis Costello's new Deutsche Grammophon release
"North" is not what anyone would call typical
Costello.
In sharp contrast to his last album, 2002's "When I
Was Cruel," the new album, released Sept. 23, eschews
rock instrumentation and textures. Costello plays
guitar briefly on just one number; the collection's 11
tracks -- all original ballads -- are dominated by
Steve Nieve's piano.
Costello says of his unusually naked new songs, "The
first song is taken [by some listeners] as a song of
romantic loss, when it's actually a song about
bereavement. The rest of the songs describe a
transition from bewilderment into acceptance. That is
something I believe is something that people will
recognize in degrees... Hopefully, in time, different
songs will mean different things to individuals who
are listening."
The introspective, bluntly honest, often wounded songs
were penned during Costello's 2002 American tour.
Costello says, "I was seeking out pianos wherever I
could -- backstage, in dressing rooms, sometimes in
the wings of theaters. And then I bought a little
cheap electronic keyboard so that I could have
something to play late at night in a hotel room. I
could sketch things out on that. I was also on the
road, literally on the road, so I could sit at the
back of the bus with the keyboard and keep working.
"When I finished the tour, a second group of songs
appeared, which is the second half of the record.
Pretty much, they appear in the sequence in which they
were written."
He adds, "There is a strain of piano ballad running
through my recordings, and this is the most pronounced
realization of that type of composition. People who
have known me for edgier or more demanding-sounding
records, more demanding of your attention, would be
surprised to hear the use of my voice or my register,
and the relative quiet of the instrumentation."
Without claiming any direct influence, Costello
acknowledges the impact of some classic soul-baring
albums on the songs heard on "North."
Costello says, "Once you've written the songs, it's
irrelevant what kind of music you think it is, or what
kind of music other people think it is. You have to
look to the records that ask the same of you as a
listener. The precedents for records that move you in
that way might be something like [Billie Holiday's]
'Lady in Satin,' but it could just as easily be
something like [Joni Mitchell's] 'Blue' or [Bob
Dylan's] 'Blood on the Tracks.' It doesn't have to be
music that sounds even remotely like it. It just is
something that you know that went somewhere, and you
think, 'That was admirable, to go out to that extreme.
"I'm not trying to put this album on a plateau with
those albums. Only listeners will tell if they believe
it to be of consequence to them. But that's what you
have to think about. There's no point in doing
something as open-hearted and as undisguised as this
and trying to do it less than records such as the ones
we're speaking about. They should always be your
guide. It's not so much that they're inspiration or an
'influence,' as people call it. 'Influence' just means
you stole the idea."
Though intimate in content, the set is embellished on
several numbers by arrangements, written by Costello,
featuring a string and horn ensemble that sometimes
swells to 48 pieces. The Brodsky Quartet, the
classical ensemble that collaborated with Costello on
"The Juliet Letters" in 1993, appears on one track.
Soloists include jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz,
trumpeter Lew Soloff, and vibraphonist Bill Ware.
Costello says of the arrangements, "The use of this
particular type of low horn ensemble, is something
I've been working with, although not on record, since
1995. I didn't just stumble on this yesterday. I've
been working with this sound for a number of years. I
just haven't got it on record before."
Costello's pop-oriented recordings are released
through Island/Def Jam. But Universal Classics
chairman Chris Roberts offered Deutsche Grammophon --
which released "For the Stars," Costello's 2001 set
with opera star Anne Sofie von Otter -- as a haven for
"North."
The current album acts as a prelude to the late-2003
release by Deutsche Grammophon of an orchestral album,
recorded with Michael Tilson-Thomas and the London
Symphony Orchestra, of Costello's ballet score for "A
Midsummer Night's Dream," commissioned by Italy's
Aterballetto dance company.
"[Roberts] gave me the opportunity to make a ballad
album," Costello says, "and I had a whole other
repertoire of maybe 20 or more songs that I could have
recorded. Then the 'North' songs appeared, and the
imperative changed. I was given the opportunity to
record a record which was more or less serving a
function of building a musical bridge to a record that
was already in the can. At that very time, I think I
wrote what I believe are among the best songs I've
ever written."
The CD package for "North" includes a PIN number that
allows consumer to download the titular composition,
which Costello chose not to include on the album out
of concern for the overall tone of the work.
Costello explains, "On another occasion, I might have
paced the record with humor or with a lighter or
faster tune, but I felt that it was drawing away from
the intensity, so I didn't want to do that."
Release-week events include a pair of concerts at New
York's Town Hall; a live performance at New York's
Museum of Television & Radio, simulcast at the
museum's L.A. location and six major-market Virgin
Megastores (and taped for a later airing by the
syndicated public-radio series "World Cafe"); and
appearances on "The Late Show With David Letterman"
and "A&E Live By Request." The singer was scheduled to
tape PBS' "Soundstage" on Sept. 26 for a later airing.
Costello begins an extensive tour of Japan and Europe
in early October.
"Then hopefully," Costello says, "in the late winter
or early spring of next year, we'll do a full-length
American tour, if all is well."
He admits that incorporating the offbeat, uniquely
arranged "North" material into sets with his band the
Imposters represents a special challenge.
"These are so quiet, these songs," Costello says.
"They're so quiet even in relation to the other
ballads that I have. I use a different voice,
technically, so it's quite tricky to shift inside the
Imposters' repertoire, but not so much within the
repertoire with Steve. So I'm hoping that in time
we'll find a way to marry all of these things
together. I always have done in the past.
"Hopefully there will be some opportunity to
eventually perform the songs with the orchestration in
concert, but even if that doesn't happen until after
the orchestral score is released, then we have a
natural repertoire to perform with orchestra. We can
have excerpts from that score, these songs, songs from
'Painted From Memory,' other songs that I have
arranged for orchestral groups. I could within a year
do a group of concerts that allowed me to explore that
side of things."