{"id":29,"date":"2016-09-08T04:14:46","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T04:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/?p=29"},"modified":"2016-09-08T04:14:46","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T04:14:46","slug":"nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/?p=29","title":{"rendered":"Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds"},"content":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a satisfying continuity of texture, temperament and themes between Skeleton Tree<\/em> and its predecessor, 2013\u2019s Push The Sky Away<\/em>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0despite the awful intercession, in the intervening years, of the tragic death of Cave\u2019s son Arthur, which might have been expected to reflect heavily on this album\u2019s content. But in the recent documentary film about the album, One More Time With Feeling<\/em>, Cave refutes the cliche that creativity is fostered by such tragedies, explaining that the trauma simply blots out everything.<\/p>\n

Significantly, only one of these eight songs was apparently written after that event, and it\u2019s hard to tell which it is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This gives some measure of the sustained impact of his current songwriting process, in which narrative and structural development is foregone in favour of allusive images seeking to span earthly states and spiritual transcendence, a gulf sketched in animal metaphors and disillusioned theology. The opening \u201cJesus Alone\u201d, an expressionist sonic tableau of throbbing industrial noise, wisps of electronic tones\u00a0and brief glimpses of piano and violin, concludes with the observation, in Cave\u2019s sombre baritone, that \u201cyou are a distant memory in the mind of your creator\u201d; towards the album\u2019s end, in \u201cDistant Sky\u201d, his faith has been totally shattered: \u201cThey told us our gods would outlive us\/But they lied.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which leaves us stranded here, bereft, in our state of clay, prey to bestial impulses and absurd fate. Allegorical animals inhabit these songs, from spiders and jellyfish to hyena, while even the most humdrum locales hide epiphanies: a supermarket is the site, in separate songs, of both murderous urges and visions of a lover\u2019s transcendent purity. The most affecting piece here, though, is \u201cGirl In Amber\u201d, which most strongly reflects the anguish of bereavement: Cave\u2019s wracked recital is joined, on the choruses, by an odd keening which, in its unadorned humanity, seems perfectly apposite, before the song ends on a repeated \u201cDon\u2019t touch me\u201d, its narrator still numbed by cataclysm.<\/p>\n

Musically, it\u2019s much of a piece with Push The Sky Away<\/em>, the songs being built from Warren Ellis\u2019s loops and Cave\u2019s piano feels, sensitively and sparsely addressed by their fellow Bad Seeds. It can be a sad, sometimes harrowing journey, though never less than compelling; and eventually, a measure of gentle solace is afforded by Skeleton Tree<\/em>\u00a0itself, which closes the album with Cave\u2019s repeated assurance that \u201cit\u2019s all right now\u201d. It\u2019s like a shaft of sunrise dispelling a dark night of the soul.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a satisfying continuity of texture, temperament and themes between Skeleton Tree and its predecessor, 2013\u2019s Push The Sky Away \u2013 despite the awful intercession, in the intervening years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[24,25],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-style","tag-life-trending","tag-news","clearfix","overlay-wrapper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/nito\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}