[Look Long] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s)

With his Minimise label laid to rest before it reached its tenth birthday (Costello felt the name had become almost cliché considering the last few years’ obsession with the genre) the Irishman returns for 2009 on his brand new Look Long imprint, the name reflective of its ethos. After ending 2008 with “It Simply Is” — the emotionally rousing swan song for Minimise — we find Costello in a pensive mood for his new label’s first release. “Always A Why” has a film soundtrack element to it; it is perhaps no small coincidence it sounds like the birth of something, a new day, a sun rising. Soft pulses of percussion give the mostly atmospheric track a heartbeat; a tenuous, wonderfully distorted synth plays a searching solo and is later joined by an acoustic guitar.

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“Closing Circles” again evokes a soundtrack, starting out with of the same hope of “Always A Why” but descendant bass tones and sharp, short chords turn the feeling upon itself, marking a sense of limbo. “Waltz For Chet” openly displays Costello’s love for classic Detroit techno (and Chet Baker as the influence-checking title indicates); the Roland drums and backwards effects sound like they’re straight from an early Derrick May track and lend an air of fragility to the gorgeous layers of careful melody that follow. “The Only Way to Win Is Not the Way To Play the Game” shows Costello for the veteran producer he is with this stunning start to Look Long.