The Beautiful Lie

British Mercury Prize nominee, Ed Harcourt is a bit raffish and gloriously hungover, but also the best company you could imagine over a fried breakfast in Soho on a warm Saturday morning. He's also hard working, creative and sickeningly prolific. THE BEAUTIFUL LIE, his fifth album in six years, in between outside projects with bands like Wild Boar and the Dead Thank Yous, the latest in his line of inventive, adventurous records. And it's the best thing he's ever done. Graham Coxon (Blur) was on hand to lend his guitar for "Visit from a Dead Dog" and BJ Cole slid in with some mournful pedal steel on various tracks. The Magic Numbers appear on the album, lending backing vocals to lead track "Revolution in the Heart." It's a record that Ed thinks of as being very homegrown, less in love with the Southern swampiness of Tom Waits and Sparklehorse, than with the romance of Southern England.