Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 'Skeleton Tree' (September 2016)

Guardian had this earlier this week
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/05/five-hidden-gems-from-nick-caves-catalogue

The album is every bit as devastating as one would expect. Almost percussion-free, drone ballads with no resolution.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), vrijdag 9 september 2016 10:20 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Otm. Nothing ore to add, really. It's top heavy.

Who's the woman singing on Distant Sky?

Else Torp

Dank!

"Almost percussion-free, drone ballads with no resolution" is really scaring me away from this

"Almost percussion-free, drone ballads with no resolution" is really scaring me away from this

Gotta admit I was pretty disappointed with it after three listens and figured it was an album I wouldn't be spending much time with, but listening again after seeing the film I'm finding it pretty powerful/affecting. Not sure if I would've come around to it (or given it the time) if I hadn't seen the film.

Re: the question about distribution -- I noticed in the end credits a reference to a DVD, so you should be able to see it at some point. I went into the theater mildly annoyed that it was filmed/released in 3D and for the first couple of minutes thought that it was going to be a distracting gimmick, but I ended up being surprised at how it really added a particular level of intimacy that I don't think I've felt from a documentary before. Anyway really a heartbreaking thing to watch. I don't think I've ever seen Cave stumble through thoughts or be at a loss for words before.

Have not seen the film, but after a few listens I really love the album. I don't find it top-heavy at all - actually, the closing two tracks are probably my favorites.

saw it last night.
got a bit long for me but it was powerful.

there were some nice little moments of humor as people mentioned, warren and nick clearly have a affectionate relationship and have a nice little private sense of comedy, the part where warren shows nick this new shiny aluminum violin he had made and says it was $3000, nick says i hope it sounds good and warren says "no, but it looks awesome" was good

but yeah really the parts that are the core (outside of the performances) are towards the end with nick and his wife talking about their son. after all these years, and all the mythology and mystique of nick cave you just see him as a father, as a man grieving and having no more more answers than any of us....one particular scene, his wife shows a painting they found that their son did at age 5 that was of the area where he eventually died, she is talking about it and how it was framed with a black matte and how that seemed ominous in retrospect and nick is just sitting there you can tell he's almost crying...anyway she quiets and he's sitting there holding her hand and then awkardly offers "do you want me to set it over here" and then struggles a bit with setting the painting against a chair....i don't know there was just something about how he was focusing on this little insignificant task instead of the grief as a way of helping and supporting his wife that reminded me of my father or the fathers of my friends

i think the new album is very powerful but i listened to it after the movie so i have no idea how to separate the two now

film was excellent and very moving but perhaps about 20 minutes too long. not sure the 3D added anything but then the cinema i saw it in was swelteringly hot and my glasses kept steaming up.

yeah i saw it in an old theater that didn't offer 3D so we were wondering what all the talk about that during the film was

this is brutal - like a numb man attempting to avoid disintegration and not necessarily succeeding

but it's also definitely the best work he's done since dig lazarus

if i were gonna rank it against like, the other ballad-heavy nick cave albums, i'd put it behind boatman's call but ahead of no more shall we part, nocturama, push the sky away...really all of them except good son

Not really selling it like that. These are mostly clunkers

rank it against other clunker-heavy nick cave albums

anyway i've only watched the clip linked above and both the song and the way it was filmed were incredibly powerful

i think i'm the world's biggest fan of "push the sky away" i love that album so much

if i were gonna rank it against like, the other ballad-heavy nick cave albums, i'd put it behind boatman's call but ahead of no more shall we part, nocturama, push the sky away...really all of them except good son

― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Friday, September 9, 2016 1:32 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also this feels a lot different, obv i guess it's quiet and they are largely "ballads" but they feel way different less singer songwritery

i think i'm the world's biggest fan of "push the sky away" i love that album so much

my old roommate loved and played that album so much that now i am a huge fan of it too

Not really selling it like that. These are mostly clunkers

― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Friday, September 9, 2016 1:51 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what do I need to do to get you into this Nick Cave meditation on grief? Tell ya what, my manager won't like this but I'm going to upgrade you to the LX trim package, gets you heated seats and a Bose soundsystem

i used "ballad-heavy" because it seemed like the best basic umbrella term, i guess - but yeah, more than a few of the skeleton tree tracks are not ballads in any sense, they're sounds over which he vents grief

the only truly clunker-heavy nick cave album is nocturama and even that has "babe i'm on fire"

...and then struggles a bit with setting the painting against a chair...

Yes, this. So perfect and so sad. A lesser director would have cut this for sure. But there was a whole world there in that little scene.

to each his own - feel like his music became too portly and laboured from 'No More...' onwards

did you not like dig lazarus dig or the grinderman albums?

not that much - still felt kinda forced

Thomas Wydler has naff all to do here. When he popped up in the movie I thought hello, here we go, bit of the old blood and chunder. But he just tickled the hi-hat for a few minutes then fucked off. Probably got paid for his time too. Nice work if you can get it. Weird drumming by Sclavunos on "Anthrocene". Sounds a bit like something a four-year-old does in music class. No wonder they keep fading it in and out all the time.

just listened to it for the first time tonight. i love it. it's so bare and sad. hurts to hear it but i am glad he released it.

it's funny, it's always been oh goth nick cave etc but as a fan for 20 odd years it occured to me while listening tonight that this is what his sadness *actually* sounds like, and it really gave me pause. like, is it ok that i'm listening? it feels so private. and there's some really beautiful writing here but damn
the personal cost

i got a very strong wh auden feeling from this, maybe just the depth of grief idk

IS Nick Cave Goth, thought he was absolutely dismissive of taht even in the beginning. There was a thing he wrote in the NME in '82 about the ship sailing or something that tried to distance him from that.

Plus he seems to have a lot of influences that seem a lot more upbeat. Do love those hammond grooves he put on several lps which would seem more linked to mod or soul or r'n'b or something than goth really.
Though not sure what goth actually sounds like , it went through major stylistic changes in the 80s as bands like The Mission got into hoary 70s rock stuff.
Not sure what a Goth listens to these days but would be surprised if it was 60s soul/r'n'b and whatever was influencing Cave up to now.

Kind of think of Cave as being Cave so still somewhat surprised he's even still doing Bad Seeds instead of a more temporary project when he wants to release music. But this is in the wake of great loss of course

Blasphemous, but starting to think Ellis years >>> Harvey years

You seem to be bizarrely fixated on Cave continuing to use his band's name to release his band's music xp

I imagine (hope) this album will grow with a few listens but for me atm there are too many songs that feel like half-finished attempts at something better.

very unrelated but when I read "Skeleton Tree" inside my head Bob Dylan is singing "skeleton KEEEEEYS"

seeing the movie 2night, hope it doesn't bring me too far down

You seem to be bizarrely fixated on Cave continuing to use his band's name to release his band's music xp
>
That just seems to propfoundluy miss the point. cave seems to be an artist with recognition in a number fo fields so it is surprising to me taht he is still making music with the same group of people when he would presumably have the choice of a much wider group of people.
THere have also been several years interval between the last few lps.

After reading the Mick Harvey interview I linked to near the start of the thread I'm aware of how short term Harvey seemed to look at projects as being and that certainly at the time of the interview he felt that each thing should be able to stand on its own feet instead of relying on the kudos attached the band name or other formerly earned laurels. Harvey and Cave are obviously not the same person but would have thought Cave's thought might be more along the same lines.

So surprised that Cave isn't working up music with new people more frequently.

i never said nick was actually goth i was fake quoting general media idea of him, if that was unclear

and i think nick stays with the bad seeds because he trusts them. and maybe he's insecure at heart about striking out alone. ai think he probably enjoys the creative language that he's established with the seeds vs teaching new people how to understand what he wants

i don't think that's a bad thing nor an impediment to creativity

Goth is like Balearic really, it's just a feeling, nearly every genre has its goth Wing and there is literally no version of goth that excludes Nick Cave.

Everyone goes goth in the end. It's just a question of how they get there and what they do when they're there.

Hammond grooves and bespoke clothing. Isn't Cave a mod?

the movie is devastating. the 3D doesn't add much except that sometimes that you feel situated in the weird folds and corners of the rooms they occupy. i didn't feel like it was too long, felt like it stopped right when it hit a wall, which is the inarticulacy and illegibility of grief and trauma, but also the song where the camera telescopes out into a view of the earth rotating literally lifted me out of the movie at its deepest emotional pocket. everything else was v beautifully shot and staged, the lighting arrangements in the studio in particular.

I also love the scene early on where cave is talking about overdubbing a vocal on an improvised song and how it was hard to find the one, because everyone playing "didn't know where the one was, or each had a very different opinion of where the one was"

So surprised that Cave isn't working up music with new people more frequently.
― Stevolende, Sunday, September 11, 2016 8:09 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

His son died. He even said in the movie he couldn't function without Warren.

Not everybody has seen a movie that just got limited distribution one night last week

Regardless of that, your surprise that Cave continues to work with a tried and trusted group of collaborators is frankly baffling.

At one point I thought the idea of reinvention was pretty core to Cave, Certainly seems to have been to Mick Harvey in that interview from the mid 80s. So I'm surprised that he is still sticking with the same band structure that he has done for 32 years.
I don't think there are many artists who do stick to the same structure for that long.
I find it pretty creepy that you would find that idea baffling. It seems to be more common for artists to change as life alters the way they see things and new influences come into play.
I thought I'd explained that several times. So if you still can't understand that i think that might just be your problem not mine.

I do think that it would be interesting to hear other collabrations between him and new people. I thought that was something that kept things fresh for most artists.

I did think vegemite girl's point about "and i think nick stays with the bad seeds because he trusts them. and maybe he's insecure at heart about striking out alone. ai think he probably enjoys the creative language that he's established with the seeds vs teaching new people how to understand what he wants". was interesting and probably valid. But I would still like to think that Cave was an artist still in some level of flux so continually changing and that sounds like getting overly familiar with other artists quirks might not be the most conducive to.

Also I'm surprised that he still uses the name of a band that first came together with a couple of core co-founders who have long since left. Would have thought that bad Seeds might be replaced with another name when Harvey left. Which hasn't happened. but there have been a couple fo reasonably lengthy interval in band activity during that I think.

For me the Bad Seeds have never been much more than a glorified backing band (and yes i'm aware of Harvey's and Ellis' musical direction therein). His name as an (music) artist is Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, his name as a person is just NC. Kinda like the PJ Harvey band but the other way around

The Bad Seeds have always been one of the best live bands in the world, so I think they're rather more than "a glorified backing band."

I want to love the new one because he was once my favorite artist in the world and I can't even imagine his grief, but his balladeer style has always been pretty hit or miss for me & I considered the Boatman's Call 100% "miss" so I'm kind of avoiding actually listening to this.

the last two records imo aren't really balladeer nick. they're slow-moving but very intense in their own way

for a long time my favorite cave record was no more shall we part and I don't think this record even takes place in the same world. it's a way more sinister and improvisational environment imo that only occasionally lapses into traditional prettiness

his balladeer style has always been pretty hit or miss for me & I considered the Boatman's Call 100% "miss"

noooooooo "far from me" is the best

yeah this one is not particularly close to Boatman's Call in sound

my idea of this record also may be complicated by the movie, which, bc of both its framing and the musical way in which it's filmed, made me trust the songs as they were being performed more than I might have otherwise

I don't think there's a real clear analog to this album anywhere in his catalog tbh

i have a review copy of the 3-disc greatest hits "lovely creatures" and it sounds great, everything is taken from the remasters, and actually does work as a representation of his artistic permutations in chronological order. why anyone would get the out-of-order 2 disc box set, tho, is anyone's guess

I saw the movie on an airplane and it was as good as many said, even in 2D. (And on an airplane.) I did wonder, though, how much someone who didn't know Cave at all would get from it. It does tackle some universal themes, however elliptically, and it's quite artistic, but I dunno.

It's funny, I was just thinking of compiling a career overview and this does the trick very nicely. As with any of these I could quibble about a few tracks included or missing but overall it's great. It flows really well and reminded me how fantastic "Abboitior Blues" and "Dig Lazarus" are.

Excellent, wide-ranging new interview:

http://www.gq.com/story/the-love-and-terror-of-nick-cave

yup good stuff, thx

love the Russell Crowe anecdotes that guy seems so hilarious

That is excellent, thank you.

yeah damn, what a great piece

Chris Heath, doing the business again. Think he's incapable of writing a bad piece.

That GQ piece was impeccable. Didn't even notice it was Chris Heath.

wow, that is an incredible piece - thanks for sharing, anagram

also how the fuck is nick cave 59 years old

I went to the two LA shows & they were great. I was impressed by how sinister some of the new songs came off live, specifically "Girl in Amber" and "Magneto". Actually the real gut-wrenching moment for me wasn't during any of the new songs, but during the climax of "Weeping Song" with Nick wading out into the hands of the crowd delivering the line "I’m so sorry, father/I never thought I hurt you so much"

It also doesn't get said enough but man the Bad Seeds are such a fantastic band.

saw him in berkeley a few days before that, it was easily the best performance I've ever seen him give. this iteration of the Seeds is a bit stripped down and sloppy compared to the last few that have been out but that seemed to work; but he himself, holy shit. Now that Prince and Bowie are gone, I cannot think of a more charismatic and engaging performer in rock music.

Same in Chicago a few days earlier.

The immersing himself with the audience resonated with me in a post-Batalclan way -- instead of fearing the audience, crowds, public, he goes even further into connecting with them.

Also, the projection of the audience onto the screen both made it more immersive and acknowledged how photographing a concert is now (and forever) part of the concert experience.

The old chestnuts feel...if not cartoonish at least detached in their violence. He's at the top of his craft now.

Here's a photo a friend shot from the Chicago show.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds pic.twitter.com/kL6PKcHgFJ

— Patrick Monaghan (@pkmonaghan) June 17, 2017

taken in conjunction with how he's spoken about how important it was that strangers came up to him and asked him if he was ok, and offered sympathy, and how that kept him and Susie alive after the death, the crowd interactions did take on another rather obvious dimension; but the obviousness didn't detract from it's meaningfulness.

beautiful picture there

There are a couple of recent live sets up on Dime. Got one lined up to play after what i'm listening to now.