Elvis Costello: “Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane”

Initially, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane was scheduled to be released not as a proper Elvis Costello album, but as a Coward Brothers album– a makeshift duo comprised of Costello and producer T-Bone Burnett. Though the role of each man remains unchanged, the billing doesn’t– now, it’s simply an Elvis Costello album produced by Burnett– but the last-minute name change suggests something of the haphazard, by-the-seat-of-their-pants manner in which the record was assembled.

And speaking of name changes: They may as well have called this one Almost Bluegrass. Though Burnett has produced Costello before, both on the glossy pop workout Spike and the spare, acoustic Americana of King of America, this new recording bears more in common with Almost Blue, Costello’s country/Western covers album from the early 80s– not in sound so much as in spirit. Like that album, Sugarcane finds Costello rolling up his sleeves for a genre exercise that uncannily emulates the style of a particularly American musical idiom. Only this time, instead of Nashville-bred countrypolitan and honky-tonk, it’s Appalachian bluegrass, pitched somewhere between string band and jug band, almost entirely acoustic and played with bona fide hillbilly grit by Costello and a troupe of honest-to-goodness bluegrass musicians.

That Costello nails the sound he’s striving for goes without saying; this is the walking, one-man Pop Encyclopedia we’re talking about, of course, and he’s never met a genre he couldn’t mold into his own image. But as well as it works, on a technical level anyway, as bluegrass, I’m not so sure that it works as a Costello album.

He’s got the country grit that he needs to make this work– that much was proved with Almost Blue. And he’s got the sensitivity to make his acerbic wit and love of wordplay work in an acoustic setting– that much was proved, well, over and over again, on too many Costello albums to count. He’s even got the songs: “Hidden Shame” is a strutting country number that recalls the rambling “Glitter Gulch,” “My All-Time Doll” is an ominous creeper, “I Dreamed of My Old Lover” is an appealingly old-timey country-folk ballad, and a new version of “Complicated Shadows,” though stripped of its electric guitar, actually musters more energy and mayhem than the original in this sped-up and stripped-down version.

And yet, for all the terrific musicians– including Jim Lauderdale and Emmylou Harris on harmony vocals– and a good set of songs, what the project lacks is cohesion; indeed, it’s almost difficult to think of it as a proper Costello album, as its shakey construction makes it feel more like a batch of leftovers. The album was recorded quickly, in the same manner as last year’s wonderful Momofuku, and while that slapdash technique yields some wonderfully ramshackle performances, it would seem that Costello never bothered to write a set of songs for this project. Thus, he throws together a batch of tunes from his aborted musical about Hans Christian Anderson, reworks one older song (“Complicated Shadows”), covers Bing Crosby, and puts his own stamp on a couple of songs he wrote for other people.

In other words: It’s a hodgepodge, and not even this fine cast of players is able to pull it all together into something focused and unified. As such, the project feels meandering and aimless, which wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the sinking feeling that this whole project is simply a vehicle for jetissoning some songs that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. So it feels more like a B-sides set or a fans-only compilation than a full-on Elvis Costello album, but, as far as such things go, it’s by no means an unpleasant listen.

Film Break: “Up”

Pixar’s tenth film, Up, opens in the same way as its sixth film, The Incredibles: With black-and-white newsreel footage, establishing the context, the prologue, as it were. But this is not The Incredibles. Almost as soon as the newsreel footage begins, the viewer will also notice a distinctly cartoonish visual style, not at all unlike Monsters, Inc.; later on, the film employs zany action-adventure set pieces that bear fleeting resemblance to the great chase scene that serves as Monsters‘ climax. There’s a sense of wonder in everyday thing– in this case, an old house and a giant bouquet of balloons– that recalls Toy Story; vast, colorful landscapes that capture the same sense of awe felt in Finding Nemo‘s ocean vistas; and, perhaps most crucially, an entirely wordless montage of incredible visual nuance and emotional depth, similar in a great many ways to the first half hour of Wall*E.

But Up, though it is many things, is not Pixar-by-the-numbers, nor is it a film built from spare parts; rather, is is a film quite unlike any other that Pixar has ever made. In fact, it’s unlike any other film, period. It’s a Saturday morning cartoon cum B-movie adventure, a buddy movie that spans generations and continents, and a film about love and marriage, death and grief, growing old and savoring the taste of life and of adventure.

I shan’t comment on the plot, or even on the film’s central metaphors; you already know about some of these from the trailers, and really, the less you know about them the better. What I will say is that Pixar seems only to grow increasingly confident in making increasingly sophisticated films. This is a cartoon for grown-ups to enjoy just as much as their children, if not more, and, it’s as unconventional a summer blockbuster as any since, well, Wall*E– I mean good grief, the lead character is eighty years old! And speaking of Wall*E, this film is not nearly as vast or ambitious as that one, at least not in terms of pure scale, nor should it be; this is a smaller story, and at times it’s as intimate as that film was epic. And yet, there are scenes of such oddball adventure, surreal fantasy, and goofy humor that the film is as elusive as any in the Pixar canon, always defying easy categorization.

And yet, the Pixar movie it most reminds me of, I think, is Brad Bird’s beautiful, unforgettable Ratatouille. Like that movie, Up is a small and wondrous story, a miracle of a movie that is destined to be not simply liked, but cherished and treasured by many. Personally: It damn near brought me to tears on a couple of instances, with its depictions of lifelong, marital love that are as pure and as sweet and as real as in any film that I’ve seen. You’ll notice that I’ve barely mentioned the balloons. That’s because it’s as much about balloons as Ratatouille is food. It’s a story that goes deeper down than most live-action filmmakers dare to dig, ad as such, it soars higher than most filmmakers could even imagine.

CT Review: M. Ward

My review of Hold Time– the very fine album released by M. Ward earlier this year– was published in a recent issue of Christianity Today, and is now available onlinel, as well. Of course, I posted a much longer review here in early February.

Tracking “Blood from Stars”

I’ll be honest: I really have no idea what Blood from Stars means. I’m not even sure how it works semantically– how does blood come from stars?– much less how it fits as the title of Joe Henry‘s eleventh album. There is a song called “Stars,” but it makes no mention of blood. I’m stumped.

It’s one of a good many things I can’t tell you about the record, and may never truly figure it out. But then, I rid myself long ago of the idea that Joe Henry’s music is best enjoyed by trying to figure it all out. Henry, of course, is my favorite singer-songwriter of all, a secret I’ve not kept very well, and a fact about which I make no claim to unbiased decision-making. He’s the brightest constellation in my musical galaxy, and his album Tiny Voices is a landmark in my life, an album that’s so thoroughly colored my tastes and my perspective– and not just about music– that I’ve long forgotten whether I first loved it because of how similar its sensibility is to my own, or if years of listening have caused the album to reshape my thinking in its own mold. At any rate, what I love most about the album is the way that it seems to recreate itself every time you play it. It maintains a certain magic, cloaks itself in a certain sense of mystery, that makes it fairly difficult, and probably unrewarding, to try to explain what it is or what it’s about in just a few short sentences.

In other words: Joe Henry doesn’t make albums to figure out, but albums to live with. And I haven’t lived with Blood for Stars very long– not enough to make any grand pronouncements about it, anyway. But I’ve lived with it long enough for it to make itself known as a rich and rewarding piece of work, and to become rather excited to share the experience with you all. So here’s a Hurst Review first– a track-by-track preview of an album that comes out on August 18th. Enough, I hope, to raise some eyebrows, whet some whistles, and pique some curiosities without spoiling too many of the album’s surprises.

The record begins with a first for Henry– an instrumental overture called “Light No Lamp When the Sun Goes Low,” played by jazz pianist Jason Moran. It’s a spare, melancholy tune with an elliptical melody, and you might not piece it together until the song resurfaces later on the record…

The first proper song, “The Man That I Keep Hid,” enters with the low murmur of sampled dialogue, via keys player Keefus Ciancia, before Jay Bellerose enters with steadily thumping percussion. Marc Ribot, renowned guitar master, sets aside the axe and plays a blustering coronet, and the whole song swings along like a cabaret blues before erupting, mid-song, into what might be the most raucous track Henry’s ever recorded. It’s explosive and totally unhinged– a far cry from the mannered folk of Civilians– and its controlled chaos makes it clear that Henry is back in Tiny Voices mode again.

And, as is his custom, he follows the explosive opener with the record’s slowest, steadiest track, “Channel.” Every Joe Henry album has one ballad that I initially have a hard time finding myself in, and this is the one for this record, but its slow-burning elegance has won me over in a big way. It’s a classic Henry ballad in the vein of “Civil War” or “Flag,” but the musicians bring to it a light, improvisational touch and a sense of dissonance that mimics the sense of “disarray” Henry sings about.

Ever sly and subversive, Henry seems interested in opening this album with a series of red herrings and left-turns; he follows “Channel” with “This is My Favorite Cage,” a spare ballad performed acoustically, mostly limited to Marc Ribot’s Spanish guitar picking, which lends the track a certain flamenco flair. Toward the end, Ciancia re-enters with a wash of sampled orchestral strings, bringing the song back to the seedy club in which it began, though the overall effect– its haunted tone and wide-open arrangement– recalls the Scar track “Lock and Key.” As a lyricist, Henry continues to distinguish himself with a keen understanding of form, structure, and the sound of words; this is a carefully architectural piece, essentially a poem set to music.

Henry summons the full band again– as well as the blues motif– for “Death to the Storm,” a weird sing-along that’s pitched somewhere between blues anthem, bizarro house party, and gospel rave-up via Tom Waits. Indeed, Ribot lays down the same kind of growling, cantankerous riffs he’s brought to albums like Rain Dogs and Real Done, but the song is made by vocalist Marc Anthony Thompson, whose mighty bass gives the chorus its  swirling undertow. The lyrics are elusive and elliptical, a series of disjointed scenes and riddles that perversely beckons us to sing along.

Ribot’s growling blues licks provide the framework for “All Blues Hail Mary,” while rumbling percussion and bass, along with more weird cinematic samples from Ciancia, make it feel like an epic. It’s a quiet storm with Henry at its center, crooning one of his best-ever lyrics– but I don’t want to go too far down that road, at least not yet.

The twilit atmospherics bleed into “Bellwether,” which begins as another simple blues slow-burner, but then, at the end of the second verse, Henry suddenly boosts the volume in his own voice, apparently signaling Bellerose, who starts banging the hell out of some massive drum and sounding for all the world like hes conjuring thunder, just as Ribot picks up the coronet again and the song flat-out explodes into storming anarchy.

Henry has always been a singer and songwriter with a romantic bent, and his recent albums have all included at least one moment of unabashed whimsy and soft-shoe crooning– songs like “I Will Write My Book,” “Lighthouse,” and “Cold Enough to Cross.” That spirit informs much of Blood from Stars, but it’s never more evident than on “Progress of Love,” a tipsy tune that summons the punchdrunk ramble of “Loves You Madly” but channels it through the wistful melody of “I Will Write My Book.” It’s colored by saxophone (via Henry’s son Levon, whose horns are integral to the album’s sound and spirit) and acoustic guitar, while its lyric is a perfect mix of Henry’s cheerful humor, dark wit, and purposeful blurring of the personal, the political, and the spiritual. The third verse makes winking reference to the political bent of Civilians, and its cheeky humor reminds me a bit of prime Randy Newman, of all people.

Young Levon then gets a chance to shine on “Over Her Shoulder,” a brief, romantic, palette-cleansing instrumental that the elder Henry wrote as a showcase for his son. He duets with decades-old string arrangements, again summoned by Ciancia.

That song gradually morphs into “Suit on a Frame,” another bluesy rocker that is the album’s most epic track, weighing in at a solid six-and-a-half minutes. Like Tiny Voices and unlike Civilians, Henry gives his full band a chance to shine, and each one of them is afforded an opportunity to speak in their own wildly articulate voices here. It’s about this point when you realize how integral Jay Bellerose’s drumming is to the character of this album; no other percussionist is as influential to the sound of the albums he plays on as Bellerose, whose drums are almost as strong a voice on this album as Henry’s is, shaking and rattling and rolling all over the place. I am increasingly convinced that the man has six arms.

“Truce” is a slow, shuffling ballad, ignited halfway through by a blistering electric guitar solo from Ribot. Henry sings with sadness in his voice, a deep gravitas that puts him on roughly the same aesthetic terrain as Tom Waits or perhaps Leonard Cohen.

And then there’s “Stars,” an explosive finale in the vein of “Your Side of My World.” Indeed, though the melody is (oddly enough) borrowed from Dolly Parton’s “Down from Dover,” the song has anarchy at its heart, Bellerose’s drums and Levon’s sax erupting into something that’s either violent or celebratory, depending on how you hear it.

But it isn’t quite the end: “Light No Lamp…” reappears here, this time with Henry singing the lyric and several of the band members providing a slow, rumbling backdrop. As on Civilians, Henry ties together all the album’s lyrical themes in the final song, bringing together many different strands and weaving them into a masterful conclusion. Fittingly, it’s the album’s most straightforward lyric– in fact, its rhythmic simplicity and benedictory wording make it feel like an old spiritual, or even a children’s song.

You will note, by now, that I am not reviewing this album, but merely describing it, offering a few surface-deep comments about its feel, its sound, and its character. It is a recording of immense depth– both sonic and otherwise– and, in a great many respects, a new highpoint for Henry, who absorbs all the lessons learned from Scar, Tiny Voices, and Civilians, yet also makes an album that is– probably intentionally– the polar opposite of his last one, not in a way that diminishes the effect of that masterful work, but rather complements it, as if the two albums showcase two distinct sides of his musical nature.

In short, it’s an album I expect I’ll be living with– gratefully, if not always comfortably– for the forseeable future.

Ashley Cleveland: “God Don’t Never Change”

My review of Ashley Cleveland’s God Don’t Never Change– a fantastic new collection of black gospel covers, played with bluesy swagger and rock rock– is posted at CT Music.

Jazz Revolution

I’m perfectly willing to accept that, with any given style of music, creative juices ebb and flow; that there are fallow and fertile periods alike. Thus, I’m also willing to accept that there have been periods when jazz music has stalled, briefly, failing to live up to its own spirit of adventure and invention. But I don’t think we’re in such a period right now. Recently, I read a review in which the critic said there hasn’t been much creative vibrancy in jazz music over the last four of five years. I beg to differ: In the last two years alone, there’ve been plenty of jazz albums rich in creative wonder and artistic play.

Here are my five favorites– in no implied order other than alphabetical.

Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – Infernal Machines

Argue’s musical vocabulary is rooted in tradition without ever seeming particularly orthodox, which means that his music is hip without sounding like a novelty or a self-conscious experiment. And it’s no pastiche, either; indeed, Argue– a prolific blogger on all topics jazz-related– has expressed a distaste for jazz ensembles that simply incorporate modern pop/rock cover songs into their repertoire as a way of seeming edgy. His own music is not a pastiche, but a true integration; he honors the structure and spirit of big band jazz even as he shows that he’s absorbed the language of Radiohead, Steve Reich, Charles Mingus, and countless others. [Read the full review.]

Mulatu Astatke & the Heliocentrics – Inspiration Information

A vibrant and hypnotic assortment of sounds and styles, by turns very Eastern and very Western, tastefully retro but also very forward-thinking, jazzy without being too esoteric and funky without sacrificing the music’s depth and sophistication. Astatke borrows many of his melodies and rhythms from traditional Ethiopian folk music, which grounds it all in a particular tradition, but he also reveals a keen interest in Western modalism, as well as a distinctly spiritual sensibility that no doubt rubbed off on him from his late friends and collaborators John and Alice Coltrane. The Heliocentrics, on the other hand, bring all the musical signifiers of psychadelia, rock, James Brown funk, and film noir soundtrack music. Some of their beats come clearly out of funk, while others sound borrowed from contemporary hip-hop. [Read the full review.]

Marco Benevento – Invisible Baby

Benvento twists musical conventions and blurs genre lines like a true postmodern, but there’s no winking hipster irony here; these songs are all filled with heart and humor. Trust me, there won’t be many songs released this year that are as achingly melodic and beautiful as “Record Book,” or as infectiously, spastically energetic as the maelstrom of video game sound effects, Casio keyboards, and frenzied percussion on “Atari.” “The Real Morning Party,” on the other hand, is unabashedly campy, but it’s also unabashedly cheerful, even joyful, and undeniably funny. It’s hard not to smile at Benvento’s strange, charmingly twisted genius when the cheesy keyboards give way to a spirited percussion breakdown– and indeed, the same can be said of the whole album, which is irreverent and funny while still being smart and sincere, hip without compromising its beauty and its earnest joy, surprising and sophisticated without losing its tunefulness and accessibility. [Read the full review.]

Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band – Season of Changes

Seasons of Changes, is a rich, full-bodied recording that finds Blade and his bandmates chasing their muse through country, rock, and pop terrain without ever losing the heart of jazz. It’s stately and elegant, but also spontaneous and improvisational; it’s earthy and it’s accessible, but it’s also ambitious, sophisticated, and, at times, soaring. [Read the full review.]

Allen Toussaint – The Bright Mississippi

The twelve tracks assembled for this record are all songs written in, written about, or at least associated with the city of New Orleans– the city that happens to serve as the primary setting for Toussaint’s own city. These are the songs that Toussaint grew up with, the songs that gave him inspiration in his formative years as a musician– and it’s easy to hear the impact they had on his own soulful funk and R&B tunes. But what these songs mean to Toussaint’s music is less important than what they mean to his spirit, and to the spirit of the city he so dearly loves: These songs are Bourbon Street brawlers, Mardi Gras romps, funeral dirges, roadhouse blues, and churchhouse spirituals, capturing in them all the spirit and history of a place that’s very specific but not necessarily bound to geography. [Read the full review.]

Green Day: “21st Century Breakdown”

I’m going to engage in a bit of speculation here and say this: That I’m pretty sure Green Day knows that they aren’t exactly hip– or at least, that what they’re doing isn’t exactly hip. Who else, in 2009, makes a full-blown rock opera– twice in a row? Who else, in the age of Obama, writes vicious, no-prisoners protest rock? And who else wears their love of classic rock on their sleeves quite so audaciously– both the cool stuff and the not-so-cool stuff alike? To boot: They do all this while also ensuring that their albums become blockbusters, in an age when “albums” don’t really sell all that well.

See, here’s the secret about Green Day: As celebrated as they are in some circles for their deadpan irony and their impish humor, their greatest weapon, at least in recent years, has been their sincerity. Ernest in an era where ernest doesn’t fly, either in the mainstream or with the hipsters, Green Day lets it all hang out on big, album-length Statements that they really and truly believe in. Like U2 before them, they’re often accused of taking themselves too seriously, but the only thing they take seriously is their music.

That’s why some love ‘em and some hate ‘em. This much, however, is no longer up for debate: Green Day is a band like no other. As has been well-documented in recent years, they began as a slacker-punk act– a novelty band born out of a flash-in-the-pan movement, destined to be one-hit wonders– but they’ve not only outlasted all their peers, but they’ve gone on to play with a fire and an ambition that is simply unparalleled in mainstream rock.

But all that’s been said before. So here’s why I love Green Day: Because as much as they apparently love rock operas, political protest records, and classic rock, their albums are, nevertheless, Green Day albums first and foremost. They make personal music, and they do it the only way they know how: By being themselves. And their new one, 21st Century Breakdown, is a very fine Green Day album. In fact, it may well be their very best.

Yes, it’s another rock opera, and yes, it’s still very political, and yes, it once again owes a heavy debt to The Who. So on first blush, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was American Idiot II. But listen again. This isn’t so much a sequel as a reboot– an album that refines what worked about the last record, pushes it to a new extreme, and fleshes it out with more ambition and creative vigor than ever before.

The first two tracks lay the album’s DNA on the table, and reveal both the potential hazards, but also how Green Day makes it work. “Song of the Century” is a brief, sing-songy prologue– an introduction to the fact that this record has a clear narrative trajectory. But where the story was sometimes obtrusive on American Idiot, here it proves to be a valuable framework for Billie Joe Armstrong to organize his thoughts. It doesn’t fetter him– it liberates him. Next, the title song is a full-on, multi-part suite that pays winking homage to at least half a dozen classic rock staples: John Lennon, Queen, Mott the Hoople, Springsteen, and more. But the song’s craftsmanship is not just clever, it’s brilliant: Green Day proudly declares their love of classic rock even while staking their own place within it, all the while keeping things rooted in quick, punchy punk, so as to keep things from getting bogged down in pomp and circumstance.

And while there’s plenty of pomp here– that’s part of the point; this is a bold update of classic, protest-rock tropes– there’s also a lot of fire; Green Day can still write punkish barn-burners like the best of ‘em, they can write sweeping riffs destined to fill arenas, they can cheekily play with flamenco sketches and gypsy guitar, and they can write stately ballads that demonstrate just how little they care about conforming to anyone else’s standards of what punk should be. For the most part, they left their raucous garage rock tendencies with last year’s Foxboro Hot Tubs project, so yes, Breakdown is very polished, but that’s what it’s supposed to be: Polished, mainstream rock.

Billie Joe Armstrong still writes entirely in slogans, of course, for which some people will deride him, but would it still be a Green Day album otherwise? Thing is, he expresses himself remarkably clearly through those slogans, and the story he tells both is and isn’t about America. It’s a story about a particularly modern malaise, a disillusionment that steams from a loss of trust in the government, religion, and the values of generations past. He juggles a pair of characters who represent two different perspectives– the brash yet apathetic Christian and the politically-minded but increasingly cynical Gloria– but the genius is that these characters are really just the two voices in his own head, and this music is nothing if not an attempt to sort through his own fears and concerns. It’s music written for the masses, but distinctly personal in its expression.

Which goes back to their earnestness. Irony may sell better, but Green Day is having none of it; everything about this music– from the classic rock adoration to the flair for grandiosity to the cultural concerns and the wrestling with demons– screams that this is the work of Green Day, with everything acting as a conduit for their expression, not a a way to hide themselves or mask their feelings. They pour everything– their interests and obsessions, their fears and their values– into this music, and then they just let it rip. Which is why they’re a band like no other, and why these albums strike a nerve: They represent something more raw than punk and more cantankerous than rock– something honest and articulate, emotional and true.

Mulatu Astatke & the Heliocentrics: “Inspiration Information”

Strut Records’ Inspiration, Information series was conceived as an exercise in collaboration, though, for its first two installments, it essentially sank into hero-worship– but then, isn’t that usually how these multi-generational collaborations turn out? On paper, the project is meant to bring together one veteran artist with a younger, kindred spirit, and in that regard it’s succeeded, but while the series is designed to give each participant a chance to shine, the first two volumes have left no question as to who is the mentor and who is the apprentice. It only makes sense, then, that for the third and hands-down the finest entry in the series yet, the Strut powers-that-be would enlist Mulatu Astatke– an artist whose long-standing interest in musical community and truly collaborative spirit show just how inspired this type of recording can be when the musicians are well-matched.

If you’re unfamiliar with Astatke’s music, then apparently you’ve never seen Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers; the director made prominent use of Astatke’s music and gave the musician just the platform he needed to begin expanding his presence in the minds and record collections of Western jazzbos and world music buffs. The movie wasn’t exactly Garden State, and Astatke isn’t exactly the Shins, but as far as Ethiopian jazz pioneers are concerned, it was still a pretty big break.

Now, the legendary composer– who began recording in the 1960s– is sympathetically paired with the UK-based collective the Heliocentrics, and what transpires between the two parties can only be called chemistry. Give much of the credit to Astatke, who practically invented the form known as Ethiopian jazz and who has spent much of his life trying to nurture an artistic community therein; though all of the album’s fourteen tracks were written by him, he treats the Helios not as his pupils but his equals, and the sound of the album is as much theirs as his. For their part, the Heliocentrics are faithful enough to Astatke’s compositions, some of which are classics though most of which are brand new. They don’t try too hard to place their own stamp on this music, but rather find themselves in the grooves, and what results is something that lives up to the album title– real inspiration.

It’s a vibrant and hypnotic assortment of sounds and styles, by turns very Eastern and very Western, tastefully retro but also very forward-thinking, jazzy without being too esoteric and funky without sacrificing the music’s depth and sophistication. Astatke borrows many of his melodies and rhythms from traditional Ethiopian folk music, which grounds it all in a particular tradition, but he also reveals a keen interest in Western modalism, as well as a distinctly spiritual sensibility that no doubt rubbed off on him from his late friends and collaborators John and Alice Coltrane. The Heliocentrics, on the other hand, bring all the musical signifiers of psychadelia, rock, James Brown funk, and film noir soundtrack music. Some of their beats come clearly out of funk, while others sound borrowed from contemporary hip-hop. Astatke doesn’t call attention to himself as a performer, but works himself into the fabric of the music– he does get in a couple of terrific solos on the vibes, and his hand percussion on some of the later tracks reveals an idiosyncratic sense of rhythm– and everything the Heliocentrics do is in service of the songs.

Which is all just a round-about way of saying that this is true collaboration, and it’s thrilling. These musicians share similar interests but also come from very different backgrounds, but when they meet here they not only find common ground, but push each other to explore and stretch creatively. To boot: The music flat-out kicks. It’s a wonderful collection that spans decades and continents, but finds its voice in pure, unified creativity.

Jarvis Cocker: “Further Complications”

At 2009′s SXSW music festival, one of the most high-profile, buzzed-about performers was really not a performer at all, so much as a guest lecturer– Jarvis Cocker, British tabloid sensation and pop star at large. Cocker didn’t perform on a big outdoor stage, but in an auditorium, where he spoke to festival-goers about the art and craft of writing pop songs– a fitting role for a man who, more and more, has come to take on a professorial role; he’s always had what might be described as an intellectual, even academic interest in the process of songwriting, of course, but, in recent years, as he has put Pulp on hiatus and eased into his role as one of rock’s elder statesmen, his music has largely abandoned the sense of provocation that made him a celebrity in the 90s, instead becoming more and more rooted in an ever-curious, wide-eyed sense of craftsmanship.

He has become, in short, a walking handbook of some of rock’s greatest traditions. In the first chapter, the celebrated pop star– now heading into middle age– disbanded his former ensemble and took his time making a leisurely, modest solo album; everything about The Jarvis Cocker Album, from its title to its washed-out artwork to the keen sense of songcraft, suggested a musician becoming comfortable on his own and settling into a relaxed groove. If you’re ever in a band and then decide to strike out on your own, take note: Cocker’s first solo album is a textbook example of how it’s done.

But then, there were Further Complications. Cocker, after touring with a regular, working band for a while, apparently had his zeal for full-time rock and roll renewed, and so he recorded a big batch of songs with his road band and producer Steve Albini, several of which went on to become his second album as a solo performer– though it’s as much a full-band record as anything he ever did with Pulp. Indeed, if Jarvis was the sound of a performer becoming comfortable playing his own songs by himself, Further Complications is where he falls madly in love with being a bandleader all over again: The sense of craft is still very much present, but working with a band has reinvigorated him. Not since Different Class has Jarvis sounded so genuinely excited by the act of making music with a full band, and, accordingly, Further Complications is an album rich in energy and excitement and sheer, giddy joy.

In fact, after the hilariously wry title song, Cocker dips into a couple of songs that jettison his usual dry wit, sounding like they were recorded solely as vehicles for his band. “Angela,” the first single, is a trashy, throwaway glam song featuring one of  Cocker’s most cliched lyrics, but that’s the very point: He’s celebrating the music that he loves and relishing the opportunity to play with a band again. He sounds committed and energized, and his purposeful sense of craft is only made stronger because of it; listen to the joyful but subtle piano and tambourine refrains in the bridge. After that comes “Pilchard,” an odd instrumental number that’s literally just a platform for the band; accordingly, they blaze through it with bravado and aplomb.

The rest of the album increases the emphasis on Cocker’s words, but never dials down the intensity of the band. This is the record where the two sides of Jarvis Cocker meet in a nearly perfect union; his popstar charisma and his professorial intellect come together to create carefully-crafted updates of rock and roll traditions, then throw them all into a blender of feverish glee. “Homewrecker” channels a 1950s rock beat through Stooges ferocity (right down to the same sax player who played on Funhouse!), “Hold Still” is a glam ballad worthy of either T-Rex or Mott the Hoople, and the two big ballads feature soulful build-ups and drums that sound like they were recorded for an Al Green album.

Interestingly, the lyrics feel more personal than the ones on his last album, which in turn felt less intimate than his albums with Pulp; something about working with a band makes Cocker feel introspective, though of course he masks it all behind his caustic wit. As with any Jarvis recording, this one is full of sex songs, but they’re marked by his typical self-deprecation. Actually, what he does is tap into a particular neuroses that was previously reserved for Woody Allen and Larry David, deconstructing human relationships and personal insecurities with nuance and stinging humor. “Leftovers” is a sad but darkly funny song about looking for romance even as we realize how fast we’re aging, and the wordplay (“I met her at a museum of paleontology/ And I make no bones about it…”) and linguistic nuance make it sound like it could have fit on Different Class. “I Never Said I Was Deep” is both riotous and moving, a self-effacing bit in which the singer makes apology for all his shortcomings.

As with many great rock albums, Further Complications sometimes becomes music about music, as Cocker uses the tropes and the language of rock and roll for his own expressive purposes. Witness the clever irony of “Fuckingsong,” in which the singer draws comparisons between making music and making sex, trying desperately to convince himself that the two can be equally satisfying; it outdoes the entirety of emo in its angst and self-loathing, but it does it with Jarvis’ typical wit. And the closing number, an epic disco song titled, appropriately enough, “Discosong,” cleverly rehashes pop radio cliches into a surprisingly moving song of love and longing; the AM radio beat only adds to the lovelorn, time-ravaged feel.

Of course, the mere fact that Jarvis would end the album with an eight-minute disco song is itself telling, though it might say less about him than it does the influence of Albini and the inspiration he’s found in his band: Here, Cocker is taking chances again, stretching himself, allowing all of his interests and obsessions to find their way into his music. And because of that, Further Complications just might be the quintessential Jarvis Cocker record– a more personal testimony than Jarvis and an album that nearly equals Different Class in its individuality, its sense of personal expression married to artistic vision. Here the Professor is walking the walk, putting all his lessons in craft into actual practice, but he’s also showing that he’s still eager to learn, still hungry– and still as vital as ever.

Film Break: “Summer Hours”

My review of Summer Hours– a beautiful and profound French film starring Juliette Binoche, opening in select markets today– is posted at CT Movies.