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Elvis Costello's Wise Up: Thought EP, subtitled Remixes & Reworks features re-imaginations of tracks from an already imaginative album, Wise Up: Ghost, issued earlier this year. Five of the seven remix tracks on this album are driven by Karriem Riggins, who — according to Wikipedia — is a jazz drummer, hip hop producer and perhaps most significantly : "currently appears in the Diana Krall quartet."
For those of you not in the know, Ms. Krall is also the current Mrs. Elvis Costello.
This possibly explains why this Record Store Day limited edition CD release (the 10-inch LP didn't come out until December) came out at all; overall, I am pretty disappointed in it, at least for the $9 or so being charged for it.
Why was I disappointed? Well, they took a very interesting song, "Cinco Minutos Con Vos," which had an exotic Spanish language twist to it and added a kinda boring rap into the fray instead. The rap is not by Elvis, so its sort of neither here nor there. Maybe I'm missing something but this one left me really flat. I was hopeful about the potential for a remix of one of my favorite tracks on the deluxe edition of Wise Up Ghost, "The Puppet Has Cut His Strings," only to find it has been kinda glitched up and whittled down to a forgettable 50-second interlude (no vocals). My favorite track on the disc — and the one that almost makes the $9 EP almost worthwhile is the Menahan Street Band rework version of "Tripwire" — this adds (not entirely surprisingly) a haunting brass section to one of the more immediately melodic songs from the album. But these aren't just random horns; this is a horn section reminiscent and worthy of no less than Janis Joplin's Kosmic Blues Band from 1968. Or if you prefer a slightly more recent vintage comparison, the sometimes haunting and somber horn sounds conjured up on David Byrne's collaboration with Robert Wilson for The Knee Plays (from 1988).
The final track on the EP is a rework of "Walk Us Uptown," the kick off track on the original LP, by Antibalas.
Anyhow, there you have it. $9 for four full songs and a few partial "interludes" resulting (at least for this long time Costello fan) in an unsatisfying, rather forgettable collection of tracks. I would recommend going to iTunes and buying just the Menahan Street Band version of "Tripwire" for $1.29 and save yourself a few bucks. Or if you want the whole EP, its only $5 there, so that makes the purchase proposition entirely more reasonable. The cover art on this EP is not that amazing after all…
Anyhow…
Onward…
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