11.08.2020
ON ‘HEY CLOCKFACE,’ ELVIS COSTELLO RANGES FAR AND WIDE
Boston Globe: Stuart Munro: October 28th 2020.
From “Almost Blue” to “North” to “Wise Up Ghost” (to name but a few examples), a restless eclecticism has been one of the hallmarks of Elvis Costello’s career. His new album, “Hey Clockface,” distills that chameleonic proclivity into a single outing. Its eclecticism is rooted in the way in which its songs came to be. Costello recorded three of the album’s tracks, working alone, in Helsinki last February. He then headed to Paris, where he recorded nine songs a few days later with an ensemble, led by stalwart collaborator Steve Nieve, that Costello dubbed “le Quintette Saint Germain.” Then the pandemic intervened. The music for the two remaining tracks on “Hey Clockface” was recorded in New York by Michael Leonhart, with contributions from Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, and others; Costello added lyrics to complete them from an undisclosed location “via the miracle of telecommunications,” as the press release for the album puts it.
Each of those sessions turns out to have a distinct sonic character. The Helsinki tracks have an urgent, constructed intensity about them. “No Flag,” which offers a statement of principles (or rather, a statement of no principles — “I’ve got no religion, I’ve got no philosophy,” Costello barks), brings to mind early, rocking Elvis (C., not P.); “Hetty O’Hara Confidential,” the story of a gossip columnist’s reign and fall, has a jagged, angular syncopation.