Friday, July 27, 2018
Elvis Costello and The Imposters – Steve Nieve (keyboards), Davey Faragher (bass), Pete Thomas (drums) – will release “Look Now” on Oct. 12 on Concord Records.
Recorded in Hollywood, New York City and Vancouver, Canada, “Look Now” is the first album Costello has made with The Imposters since the 2008 release of “Momofuku” and his first new album since the acclaimed 2013 Roots collaboration, “Wise Up Ghost.”
Costello had to cancel his summer tour due to being treated for cancer.
“I knew if we could make an album with the scope of ‘Imperial Bedroom’ and some of the beauty and emotion of ‘Painted From Memory’, we would really have something”, said Costello.
Costello wrote most of the 12 songs by himself. The disc also was will be out in a 16-song deluxe version. “Don’t Look Now” and “Photographs Can Lie” were co-written with Burt Bacharach, who makes a guest appearance, leading The Imposters from the piano for those two ballads.
Bacharach also contributed, “He’s Given Me Things.” Burnt Sugar is So Bitter” was written with Carole King.
The album was co-produced by Costello and Sebastian Krys, the Latin Grammy Producer of the Year for 2007 and 2015.
Speaking of his own role as co-producer, Costello said, “I had all of the orchestrations and vocal parts in my head or on the page before we played a note, so it was essential that I worked closely with Steve Nieve to maintain the light and space in the arrangements and allow him to shine.”
Costello completed the picture by adding both guitar and his own vibraphone or celesta parts to his orchestrations but remarked, “Sebastian was there to make sure only the essential notes got onto the record, whether it was a fuzz-tone guitar or jazz bassoon.”
“In the final mixing, Sebastian did a beautiful job of keeping everything present but always lead by emotion or narrative, although when balancing the band, my voice and the quartet of woodwinds and horns that I’d written for ‘Stripping Paper’, I told him to “Just trust the blur.”
The track listing is:
1. Under Lime
2. Don’t Look Now
3. Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter
4. Stripping Paper
5. Unwanted Number
6. I Let The Sun Go Down
7. Mr. & Mrs. Hush
8. Photographs Can Lie
9. Dishonor The Stars
10. Suspect My Tears
11. Why Won’t Heaven Help Me? 12. He’s Given Me Things
Deluxe Special Edition Tracks:
13. Isabelle In Tears
14. Adieu Paris (L’Envie Des Étoiles)
15. The Final Mrs. Curtain
16. You Shouldn’t Look At Me That Way