Elvis Costello previews new album with fourth single "Hey Clockface / How Can You Face Me?"

The bright new single follows on from earlier releases "We Are All Cowards Now", "Hetty O’Hara Confidential" and "No Flag".

"Hey Clockface / How Can You Face Me?" is the first song to be shared from recording sessions in Paris that took place the weekend after his Finland trip in February 2020. It features instrumental contributions from the Le Quintette Saint Germain ensemble.

Costello says, "This is a song about picking an argument with time, the very clock face, either running too fast or too slow, depending on the company you keep."

Hey Clockface will follow on from Costello's 2018 album Look Now with The Imposters. The new LP was recorded between Helsinki, Paris and New York.

Costello says of the Paris sessions recorded with François Delabrière, "I sang live on the studio floor, directing from the vocal booth. We cut nine songs in two days. We spoke very little. Almost everything the musicians played was a spontaneous response to the song I was singing. I’d had a dream of recording in Paris like this, one day."

Expanding on the record, Costello adds, "I wanted the record to be vivid, whether the songs demanded playing that was loud and jagged or intimate and beautiful."

Last month Costello released the "We Are All Cowards Now" b-side "Phonographic Memory".