Month: January 2022

Crowded House have today revealed the video for forthcoming single ‘Sweet Tooth’, the melodic and instantly memorable new track lifted from their award-winning album Dreamers Are Waiting.

The video footage was shot in between shows in NZ and later disintegrated by Liam Finn using a free video filter created by Irish visual artist David O’Reilly. Neil Finn then reassembled the footage into this swirling, psychedelic sugar rush.

“I wanted to have pictures that represented the giddy euphoria of eating sweets when you are a kid, a kind of sensory overload that resembles a drug experience,” Neil Finn said. Watch HERE.

Dreamers Are Waiting recently picked up the ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary album, and has been nominated for Best Record at the Sailor Jerry Rolling Stone Awards 2022, which will be held in Sydney on March 30.

PRAISE FOR DREAMERS ARE WAITING:

” … these 12 tracks enlarge the band’s considerable legacy … Finn’s minor-key melodies remain a trademark, as demonstrated by the bittersweet Deeper Down, and his ability to encompass a chaotic world through the way two people intimately relate to one another is tender and inspiring. These songs aren’t anthems, they’re insinuative, and they open up in fascinating ways.” 4 stars, Craig Mathieson, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald

“For all the ornate hooks and tidy lyrical phrases on display here, it’s that effortless dynamism that keeps these songs so fascinating … Now as much as ever before, Finn and co. focus their surplus of ideas into an accessible package that’s equally quirky and classic.” Doug Wallen, The Australian

” … from the lilting opening strains of Bad Times Good, it’s clear we’re firmly back in Crowded House territory. There are the playful harmonies and sublime guitar outro of the jaunty To the Island, while Sweet Tooth is similarly infectious. The Trump phenomenon compelled Finn to make a rare foray into politics with Whatever You Want, which has shades of his Seven Worlds Collide project. Meanwhile, Real Life Woman is an ode to his Fleetwood Mac bandmate Stevie Nicks. The album is front-loaded with the most accessible tunes, the others promise to reveal themselves with time.” 4 stars, John O’Brien, Courier Mail

Elvis Costello and The Imposters release, ‘The Boy Named If,’ a new album of urgent, immediate songs with bright melodies, guitar solos that sting and a quick step to the rhythm.

Costello tells us, “The full title of this record is ‘The Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Stories).’ ‘IF,’ is a nickname for your imaginary friend; your secret self, the one who knows everything you deny, the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own. You can hear more about this ‘Boy’ in a song of the same name,”

Speaking of the lyrical content of the record, Costello added, “Once upon a time, when I didn’t know what a kiss could do and didn’t even dare to caress, the way ahead was a mystery; a departing from that magic state called innocence for the pain that leads to pleasure and all that jazz.”

“Don’t get me started about the guilt and shame and all those other useless possessions that you must throw overboard before you set sail with your dreamboat (and a runcible spoon),” remarked Elvis.

‘The Boy Named If,’ – Produced by Sebastian Krys & Elvis Costello – is a collection of thirteen snapshots, “That take us from the last days of a bewildered boyhood to that mortifying moment when you are told to stop acting like a child – which for most men (and perhaps a few gals too) can be any time in the next fifty years,” as Costello put it.

Costello added, “Whatever you take out of these tales, I wrote them for you and to make the life of these songs a little less lonely, if you should care to dive in a little deeper.”

“I started ‘The Boy Named If’ with just an electric guitar, some sharps and flats, high heels and lowdowns, with five songs in bright major keys and carried on to write a whole new record for The Imposters to play,” Costello said.

Speaking of recording sessions, Costello said, “The initial rhythm section for this record was my guitar and Pete Thomas’ Gretsch drums, recorded down in Bonaparte Rooms West. Our Imposter pal of 20 years standing, Davey Faragher soon dialed in his Fender bass and vocals while we awaited dispatches from France.”

“If the record sounded swell as a trio, Steve Nieve’s organ was the icing on the cake, the cherry and the little silver balls,” Elvis added.

Since being forced to cut short a U.K. tour after a triumphant Hammersmith Apollo appearance in March 2020, Elvis Costello has released the album, ‘Hey Clockface’ and the subsequent French language E.P., ‘La Face de Pendule à Coucou’ – featuring the voices of Iggy Pop and Isabelle Adjani.

In the last twelve months, Costello has also completed “How To Play Guitar & Y,” a comedic, “Words & Music” production for audible.com, and released the lavish vinyl box-set edition of the 1979 album, “Armed Forces” containing facsimiles of his original lyrical notebooks bound as pulp novels and comic books.

Speaking of re-fashioning a record, Costello said, “Pete, Steve and myself started out playing rocking pop music in another century. This year, ‘This Year’s Model’ came back to surprise us in another tongue. That edition is called, ‘Spanish Model.'”

Costello said, “Both that album and ‘The Boy Named If’ are records that are happening right now and if you want to draw a line between them, go right ahead.”

“Sometimes I sit and write things down, the rest of the time I play guitar in a rock and roll band. I love my family. I really love everybody, especially the people I can’t stand, even those who trespass against us and there are a lot of them.” “Yer pal. Elvis Costello”