Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Joe Jackson, Sony Music 2019.
Joe Jackson has completed his first album since the highly acclaimed 2015 release, Fast Forward.
Fool is his 20th album and he approached its recording with a mindset different from his usual method.
For this album he decided to head straight into the studio with his touring band after finishing the extensive tour supporting Fast Forward.
The 2018 summer tour wrapped up at the Egyptian Theatre in Boise, Idaho, USA and the next day the band set up shop in the Tonic Room Studios in the same town.
Of course after three full years of touring, the band consisting of Teddy Kumpel on guitar, Doug Yowell on drums and long time collaborator Graham Maby on bass (Maby played on Joe’s first recordings 40 years ago), were incredibly tight and comfortable with improvising.
This approach has given the album a dynamic groove that comes when a band plays live.
The album contains eight songs which is short by today’s standards.
Joe describes them as the survivors of all the wrecks of songs and half songs that didn’t make the grade.
It’s been deliberately written as if he were producing a vinyl album with two 20-minute sides.
Joe didn’t set out to write an album with a theme, in this case comedy and tragedy, it just so happened that when he’d written them he discovered they were all related.
The songs are about fear, anger, alienation and loss but also about all the things that make life worth living such as friendship, laughter and music.
Fool has been co-produced by Jackson and Pat Dillett (David Byrne) and after a short time to rest and recharge the batteries the band will embark once again on an extensive tour.
The Fool tour will double as a celebration of 40 years of recorded work and the set lists will include songs from Look Sharp (1979), Night & Day (1982), Laughter & Lust (1991), Rain (2008) and Fool (2019).
I hope they come to Australia.
