Faulty connection on new Simon album

It’s a long way from “Graceland” to spaceland, but in the latest of his ongoing series of direction-changing collaborations, downbeat New Yorker Paul Simon casts his lot with the English electro-ethno-ambient visionary Brian Eno.

The idea of Simon’s erudite folk-pop meeting Eno’s elegance and experimentation holds a lot of promise, but the connection between the two (who produced together) is faulty on “Surprise,” Simon’s first album in six years (in stores today).

Simon sounds uncomfortable in most of these settings, like a fellow who’s wandered into the wrong party and sticks around stiffly trying to fit in.

There are some big, semi-rock electronic arrangements, but most of the songs make more subtle use of Eno’s studio signatures, incorporating touches such as drum-and-bass-style shuffle into Simon’s familiar African- and Caribbean-flavored grooves, and lapping atmospherics into his meandering folk reveries.

That’s really the problem. Instead of generating a new kind of song, the teaming simply dresses typical latter-day Simon material in different duds. These settings sound good, but they don’t redefine or extend Simon’s aesthetic, and they lack the spirit of fun that Eno usually finds in whatever he does.

For Simon, it’s midlife blues six years on, with long looks back at his own life -- a “catalog of regrets” -- and the life of the planet. There’s a jokey number about exercising and coloring his hair, sweet evocations of family love and laments on the state of the world.

His reliable craftsmanship remains in force, but the urgency that has generated his indelible imagery and melodies is missing. He finds it for a moment on “Wartime Prayers,” a topical meditation on human endurance and spiritual solace. Eno’s most restrained presence enhances a more familiar Simon environment -- a stately hymn with an ambient backdrop and some fuzzy blasts.

-- Richard Cromelin

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