Glenn Tilbrook & The Fluffers UK Tour

"I'm not reinventing the wheel / I just like the way that it makes me feel," Glenn Tilbrook sings on his latest release, Transatlantic Ping Pong.

When the wheel in question is the perfect three-and-a-half minute pop song, Tilbrook is a certified patent holder and member of that elite group that includes such tunesmiths as Lennon & McCartney, Ray Davies and Elvis Costello. As one half of the songwriting behind the beloved band Squeeze and now a successful solo artist, Tilbrook has perfected a signature style marked by brilliant melodic invention, cheeky humor and slice-of-life pathos, all wrapped up with unshakable hooks and his golden boy tenor. From chestnuts like Up the Junction and Pulling Mussels (From the Shell) through stunning new tracks Untouchable and Ray and Me, he has amassed a veritable Sears Catalog of memorable songs.

After the release of his solo debut, 2001's The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook, he hit the road, making his bid to become the new hardest working man in show business. "The thing I love most about playing solo is finding I could talk to an audience rather than just saying 'This is' and 'That was' and Thank you very much,' which was probably about the extent of my communication before then," Tilbrook says.

During spare moments, Tilbrook began to lay the groundwork for solo album number two, and as the title suggests, "Transatlantic Ping Pong", it came together on both sides of the pond. The recording was done in short bursts, he says. "The Nashville stuff was done in August, and the rest of the stuff I did in England in February. And then I took it back to my studio, and worked on it in Austin and New Orleans. I worked on it all over the place. I worked on it in my RV, in a field, in the middle of nowhere!"

What happened in the studios is a tantalizing smorgasbord of styles and textures, from the power pop wallop of Untouchable and percolating funk of Lost in Space to the whipsmartaleck sass of Hot Shaved Asian Teens and the dreamy reflections of Ray and Me. There's even a Ventures-like instrumental, One for the Road, as a good-humored parting shot. The scaled-back live band approach, with its splashes of Farfisa organ and bracing electric guitars, harkens back to the days of Argybargy and East Side Story - a warm, friendly sound that will undoubtedly please ardent Squeeze fans.

Tilbrook comments, "Live, I don't feel that I have to play the old songs; I want to play them. I want to dip into all parts of my career because I'm proud of it." Transatlantic Ping Pong is the latest chapter in a rich history that spans Squeeze's explosion out of the late 70's new wave movement to their continued presence on FM radio with staples such as Another Nail In My Heart, Tempted, Black Coffee in Bed and Hourglass.

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