Now That Your Picture's In The Paper
The New York Times includes a major EC article in advance of the Lincoln Center shows:
"When I first heard it," said Mr. Thomas, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra recording, "I thought this is a guy who really is in a process of searching out a lot of interesting answers in music. The interesting thing is that he doesn't always use melodies to hold the thing together. Sometimes he just uses a kind of flavor of harmonic language, which is quite elusive and subtle, especially as he evokes the dream world. There's some music that is so wondrously adventurous and non-tonal that you'd never suspect Elvis Costello has written this, because it's so out there."Mr. Costello said: "I'm not concerned with this music's relationship to my own past. Perhaps you can tell it's me, but I hope it doesn't remind you of another year in my life. I have absolutely no nostalgia about my past. I never liked being young, and I feel absolutely at a peak of my life. There are some terrific records that I'm glad I made. But I don't want to stand and fall on a handful of songs because there are still a lot of songs to be sung."