Music Notes: Elvis Costello, Momofuku

May 14th, 2008

= 4 stars

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Elvis Costello’s latest disc is hasty and inconsiderate. The song titles and album art look tossed off, the twelve tracks were recorded in a week and mixed a week later. The distribution method was haphazard - it was released on vinyl first and then as a download, and CD last. The album’s title refers to Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen noodles, hinting at a quick snack as opposed to a nourishing, slow-cooked meal.

The surprise is: the album is amazingly good - Costello hasn’t sounded this fresh and energetic in years.

Gone are the ornate, at times fussy production tricks of Spike, the emotional leaps of Painted From Memory, or the calculated, loopy disarray of When I Was Cruel. This disc is rawer than Brutal Youth - you’d have to go as far back as the imploded masterpiece Blood And Chocolate to find a Costello this sloppy and unhinged.

The instrumentation is often little more than drums, bass, relentless guitar strumming, and a vocal layer on top. The sloppy production contains revelatory, “brilliant mistakes.” Lowe or Froom would have wiped the flat “na na na” note or the out of tune harmony vocals on No Hiding Place.

Most notable in restraint is Steve Nieve, whose frilly embellishments and inventive counter melodies normally poke into every musical nook and cranny. While I love the This Year’s Model sound of every voice competing for attention, Momofuku’s absence of extreme ornamentation is refreshing.

Instead of Nieve we get Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, contributing some hooky, tasteful harmonies that frame some undeserving chord progressions - specifically the codas of Hiding Place and Turpentine - and complete those songs. I feel Costello has had rough luck with female vocalists who wither under his aggressive belting (the background singers on the Burt Bacharach Album, Chrissy Hynde on Spike, and Aimee Mann ). For whatever reason, Jenny Lewis is the best yet. I’m a bit sad that her voice is often so low in the mix.

Still, the haphazard approach takes its toll on one crucial element: the songwriting. Momofuku is an uncompromising wall of sound, with no meandering bridges, guitar solos, or dynamic high or low points as breathers. No tunes are as memorable or comparable to the best, classic Costello songs, save Flutter And Wow (which recalls the Bacharach collaboration) and the first three songs plus Go Away as most similar to This Year’s Model.

And then there’s the inevitable complaint arises when an artist has a huge back catalog: many songs resemble previous material (Harry Worth = Episode of Blonde, Go Away = Monkey To A Man, Mr. Feathers = God’s Comic, Stella Hurt = Bedlam, Chewing Gum). Perhaps in his haste, Costello unconsciously and unintentionally wrote “new” songs by mashing snippets of old tunes together.

In conclusion, what I love about Momofuku is the energy and sound, yet not the specific songs themselves. I’d compare the result to Dylan, long verses crammed full of words, barely touching a melody, ranting over the most basic chords and a solid rhythm section. It’s really powerful stuff, but I can only imagine incredible album Costello could have made if he had spent some of the time he saved rushing through everything else on the songwriting.

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