My Flame Burns Blue
ELVIS COSTELLO
Deutsche Grammophon
Because he essentially writes his own ticket and stamps it too, Elvis Costello is free to endeavor into projects such as this: reworkings of his songs backed by the mammoth Metropole Orkest orchestra, recorded live at the 2004 North Sea Jazz Festival in The Netherlands.
Thus, "Clubland" becomes a sprite cha-cha and "Watching the Detectives" is transformed into a film noir swing tune. He also puts words to Charles Mingus' "Hora Decubitus," and spits them out over a fast bebop tempo. These are the most novelty-oriented of the 14 selections on My Flame Burns Blue, and ultimately the least satisfying.
Most of the rest stays in ballad/crooner mode, with songs like "Almost Blue," "Favourite Hour" and "Can You Be True?" taking on new charms amid their new, large-ensemble finery. As usual, Costello's singing tiptoes that delicate line between passion and bombast. He's tempered the vibrato that threatened to send his head spinning off about a half-decade ago, and in all, most of the reinterpretations are quite tasteful. 3 stars Eric Snider
People Gonna Talk
JAMES HUNTER
Rounder
Oh no, not another guitar-slinging white boy in a pompadour! But wait — Hunter, a Brit, brings a different spin. People Gonna Talk cobbles together a relaxed, charming compendium of R&B styles: New Orleans cha-cha, uptown blues, Sam Cooke-style balladry, even a splash of JB-inspired funk. The songs, all by Hunter, are thoroughly derivative but likeable. This is no guitar showcase; it's his singing — a creamy croon, with a Boz Scaggs lilt — that provides most of the character. His fluid band, jazzed up by a baritone/tenor sax section, is a winning complement. 3 stars ES
Halos & Lassos
HALF-HANDED CLOUD
Asthmatic Kitty
When he's not touring/hanging out/being associated with Sufjan Stevens or working as custodian at the church in which he lives, John Ringhofer composes deceptively childlike pop tunes as Half-Handed Cloud. His fourth H-HC release leans heavily on religion, everyday life and a kitschy '80s electronic keyboard called an Omnichord as it sails through 19 short, resolutely upbeat and unerringly twee tracks in less than half an hour. The cheesy sounds and homespun production style tend to lend an insubstantiality that Ringhofer and his friends don't really deserve. Once you get past the playing-at-pop vibe, you'll find some truly endearing tunes. 3 stars Scott Harrell
I Love Guitar Wolf…Very Much
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Narnack
A tribute album to a rock band as below-ground as Guitar Wolf strikes one as odd, particularly when it contains contributions from such indie luminaries as Jim O'Rourke, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and J. Mascis. But the Japanese noise-thrash combo has always received more word-of-mouth buzz than actual sales anyway, so maybe it's not all that surprising. Not a massive fan of the band myself, I was looking forward to hearing what other artists would do with the originals. The answer seems to be: not much. Most tracks just replicate the band's primal screech 'n' howl. Not surprisingly, the JSBX simply turns "Kawasaki Z11750 Rock 'n'roll" into a JSBX song, which I can't bitch about. Puffy Amiyumi turns in a catchy and imaginative acoustic-and-accordion romp through one song, showing the bigger boys what could have been. 3 stars Cooper Lane Baker
The Sunny Side of the Moon: The Best of Richard Cheese
RICHARD CHEESE
Surfdog
Pop novelty tunes have been and will be with us forever, an idea surely comforting to Richard Cheese, who produces big-band versions of hit songs like "Gin and Juice" and "Rock the Casbah." If this sounds awful, your instincts serve you well. This record is basically a repetition of the same joke 18 times. Guess what?! Alt-rock and hip-hop sound funny when performed like a Las Vegas burlesque! While true, this hardly justifies a full-length album of such covers, not to mention the greatest-hits record on review here. Sometimes novelty songs can, over time, become outright classics. Listen to Napoleon XIV's 1966 whacko gem "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" and marvel at the oddity of such a hit. Cheese's tunes, meanwhile, are destined for the dustbin. 1 star CLB
This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2006.