
Triplicate - Bob Dylan
It's possible to read the title of Triplicate in two ways. First, the 2017 collection is the third installment in Bob Dylan's exploration of the Great American Songbook, following quickly on the heels of 2015's Shadows in the Night and 2016's Fallen Angels. Secondly, Triplicate is indeed a triple-album, or perhaps more accurately, a set of three interlinked albums all running 32 minutes apiece. Each of the three discs are given titles -- the first is dubbed 'Til the Sun Goes Down, the second Devil Dolls, with Comin' Home Late rounding out the collection -- and they're presented in a manner not dissimilar to an old-fashioned album of 78 rpms, a nod to the dawn of popular recorded music. By now, Dylan's approach to this material is familiar -- he takes his touring band into the legendary Capitol Studios in Hollywood to record arrangements that feel lean yet full, rooted in pre-war pop but played for a barroom audience -- but it is by no means exhausted. Dylan is captivated by this music,