Elvis Costello

Momofuku fits snugly into an elite class of Elvis Costello album: a hastily recorded work released months after an equally hasty retirement from recording.

In 1984, after the relative stateside success of Punch The Clock, and with a peevishness Costello was once more prone to, the singer-songwriter disbanded his legendary backing band, the Attractions, and began growing the first in a series of dodgy beards. To drive the point home, Costello recorded Goodbye Cruel World, which remains one of his most reviled albums, as well as one of his most belabored efforts. Months later, an extraordinary new record arrived in shops, intriguingly credited to "The Costello Show." Retirement over. Reputation restored.

The circumstances surrounding Costello's second retirement from recording are not as anguished. This decade has been kinder to his prestige than the '80s. Besides releasing two acclaimed pop albums (When I Was Cruel and The Delivery Man), Costello expanded his CV to include orchestral scores and is currently writing a chamber opera.

"I'd been telling people that I was done with recording and believed it myself," Costello writes on his website. "It wasn't making music in the studio that made me miserable but the nonsense that predictably follows in what we laughingly call the 'music business.'"

The album was spurred by an invitation Costello received from Jenny Lewis, of alt-country group Rilo Kiley. The vocal sessions for Lewis's song spiralled into a weeklong series of sessions for Costello's album, with some material written overnight. The result is the back-to-basics album Costello has occasionally attempted since Goodbye Cruel World, though never quite achieved.

"Some rock and roll music," Costello quips, "is better if you don't think too hard on it."