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Sep. 17th, 2013
DNA Splicing4 Out Of 5 Stars
"Wise Up Ghost." In which two of the music world's encyclopedic nerds play with Costello's past and Questlove's concepts of pop and funk. Musically it is a fascinating record, with the two of them combining bits of Elvis' older tunes with deeply funked out basslines, boiling things to a rare essence; the songs that equal or surpass the originals.
For example, just as deep as the second song, sample lyrics from "Sweet Underground" and "Hurry Down Doomsday" are tangled together to create "Sugar Won't Work." Or how "Stick Out Your Tongue" rewrites "Pills and Soap," one of Costello's angriest protest songs. Which is something else to note about "Wise Up Ghost." The Roots place a lot of dark menace into songs that weren't as sinister as they were when they started out life.
Even the samples spin things around. The tinkling piano of "Satellite" tease "Tripwire" into a more spooky area, along with the subject matter. Questlove and Elvis don't just stick with the lyrical cut and pasting, songs are pulled into the sampler like "Satellite," as well as "Radio Silence" on the (bonus track version) "Can You Hear Me."
It's not like Elvis hasn't explored collaborations and re-visiting before. This comes closer to "The River In Reverse," with Allen Toussaint and the roaring Stax romp of "Get Happy" than other Costello works, while The Roots bring out the moments when Costello becomes more a sublime singer, even though there's more than a little menace to the demanding title track or "Stick Out Your Tongue." "Wise Up Ghost" may sound like a mismatch of talents, but The Roots make this album into one of Costello's most interesting in a long time.
