 Rykodisc is proud to announce the release of the new Joe Jackson record on January 28, 2008. Entitled, Rain, it's the first Jackson record since the brilliant and critically acclaimed Volume 4 was released in 2003. While Volume 4 and the seven-month tour that followed featured the reunion of the original, iconic Joe Jackson Band, Rain,
was made with three of those four members: Jackson (vocals and
keyboards), Graham Maby (bass/vocals) and Dave Houghton (drums/vocals).
The record was produced by Jackson, and recorded in his newly-adopted
city of Berlin at Planet Roc studios.
The album precedes Jackson's highly anticipated European tour which
kicks off at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin on Friday February 29th.
Jackson will then play a one-off UK show at the London Shepherd's Bush
Empire on Sunday March 2, followed by a full UK tour later in 2008.
Very much in keeping with the eclecticism of Jackson's wonderful three-decade spanning career, Rain
is another genre-stretching effort from an artist who continues to
extend the boundaries of his craft. Reflecting the title, the record is
melancholic in places, but also boasts plenty of humor, swing,
sophistication and barbed social commentary as well as some out and out
rockers.
The
common thread running through the record is its simplicity; where
Jackson's distinctive piano and voice, Maby's intricate and melodic
bass and Houghton's tough and tender drums are all you hear. A rich yet
stark production by Jackson and mixed by Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, Rain
boasts a broad, grand sound, open yet tightly wound and focused at the
same time, that emphasizes Jackson's sterling songcraft -- a unique
amalgam of pop, rock, jazz and classical ideas and lyrics with deep,
sympathetic glimpses into the human spirit written by a man who is
keenly sensitive, sharp and complex.
About the four-year break between albums, Jackson says: "I wasn't in a
hurry to make a new album. I promised myself that I wouldn't make a
record until I had an album's worth of songs that were the best I could
do. I think several of these songs are the best songs I've ever
written, and I wanted to have 10 or 12 songs that I felt that way about
before I put out another album. I used to be a bit of a workaholic, but
I am now much more patient. The quantity has gone down, but the quality
has gone up."
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