Joe Jackson
Album: Fast Forward
Label: earMUSIC
Tracks: 16
Website: http://www.joejackson.com

A son of Staffordshire who grew up in Hampshire, Joe Jackson is now a citizen of the world who calls New York home. The relevance of such internationalism is that for his first album of original songs in seven years he has chosen to look at how we might come to view the present by imagining himself in the future looking back in four sets of four songs set in New York, Berlin, Amsterdam and New Orleans.

It's a strange conceit that arguably makes more sense to its creator than to the listener, but there's method in his, erm, method as Jackson assembles different sets of musicians to accentuate the more subtle variances in music and delivery.

Thus, for the opening set of New York treatises he calls in virtuoso guitar polymath Bill Frisell, jazz drummer Brian Blade and violinist Regina Carter alongside his regular bassist Graham Maby. The sound is thick set, muscular yet also nimble enough to match Jackson's lyrical changes, particularly on the title track where Carter's violin adds an almost ethereal. The same group is also responsible for a gritty take on television's See No Evil that could only have come from the mean streets of the Big Apple.

The Amsterdam suite opens with A Little Smile, arguably the album's poppiest piece and an echo of his late 70s chart heyday. Frequent collaborators Stefan Kruger and Stefan Schmid from Zuco 103 sound right at home, while teenage vocalist Mitchell Sink (from the Broadway production of Mathilda) and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra bring genuine.

In Berlin, Junkie Diva suggests a neon buzz and a less salubrious route home and If I Could See Your Face rails against fundamentalism as some-time Dylan and Tom Wiats bass man Gerg Cohen joins in with Tindersticks' drummer Earl Havin to cut loose on a rousing version of Weimer torch song Good Bye Johnny.

Finally, it's to New Orleans and the loosest musical aggregation with Galactic's funky rhythm section of Stanton Moore (drums) and Robert Mercurio (bass) with guitarist Jeff Raines and rip-roaring horn section led by sax player Donald Harrison brewing up a storm on Neon Rain and fair raising the roof on the album's euphoric closer, the wholly appropriately named Ode To Joy.

However Joe Jackson has got to you in the past Fast Forward has what it takes to bring him to you again. Listen up.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk