nick cave

Last month, Nick Cave spoke of a new album he completed with Warren Ellis in his Red Hand Files newsletter. Now, you can give that record a whirl. On Thursday, after years of working together (Ellis appeared on the Let Love In album before joining as a full bandmember and he’s also part of the Cave project Grinderman), the duo released Carnage, their first together. Describing it succinctly, Cave called the album “a brutal but very beautiful record nested in a communal catastrophe.” “Making Carnage was an accelerated process of intense creativity,” Ellis said in a statement of his own. “The eight songs were there in one form or another within the first two and a half days.” Last month, Cave said in his newsletter that “as promised in my last issue, I did go into the studio — with...

Nick Cave announced his 18th studio album, Carnage, this morning via a brief, cryptic newsletter mention. In issue 129 of The Red Hand Files, the recluse wrote about the lockdown and his familiarity with isolation as a former heroin addict. He also lamented his inability to play live, which might be why he decided to channel his energy into recording new music. “Anyway, as promised in my last issue, I did go into the studio — with Warren [Ellis] — to make a record.,” he adds at the conclusion of the newsletter.  Reponsding to a question about the COVID-19 lockdown from a fan named Tobias, Cave said: “I was a heroin addict for many years and self-isolating and social distancing were the name of the game. I am also well acquainted with the mechanics of grief — collective grief work...

If you want to buy some wallpaper of Nick Cave’s drawings of naked women, it sounds like you could honestly say that you’re the only person who has it. The singer-songwriter (who’s usually accompanied by the Bad Seeds, although apparently not as bad as his commercial choice of wallpaper drawings) mentioned to Financial Times that he hasn’t sold a single roll of the £200 ($270ish for those in America) product. “My favorite thing is the Hyatt Girls pornographic wallpaper, made from drawings of naked women I have doodled in hotels down the years,” Cave said. “It’s a lovely thing – and so far has sold zero rolls. I am immensely proud of designing a product that literally nobody wants!” Of course, there are also some items for sale that are hopefully selling better, like pol...

Earlier this year, Nick Cave performed a solo set at London’s Alexandra Palace that was livestreamed for a ticketed audience. The set will be released later this year both in theaters and as a proper album. Now a previously unreleased song from that show has emerged. The tender piano track “Euthanasia” was debuted during the stream and recorded during the Skeleton Tree era (around 2016). And as you can imagine, it has pretty haunting lyrics. [embedded content] The Idiot Prayer film will be released in select theaters on Nov. 5, with the album following on Nov. 20. See the tracklisting for the latter below. Spinning SongIdiot PrayerSad WatersBrompton OratoryPalaces Of MontezumaGirl In AmberMan In The MoonNobody’s Baby Now(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?Waiting Fo...

Nick Cave has been quite prolific during pandemic times, and showing no signs of slowing down, he’s now teamed up with Belgian composer Nicholas Lens on a new opera. Entitled L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S, the two worked on the project at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown, since both artists had the time. Lens took inspiration from his cycling trips around Brussels and previous journeys to Japanese temples, a release (via Pitchfork) reported. Cave, who contributed a libretto to the project, said in statement that,“Nicholas called me during lockdown and asked if I would write 12 litanies. I happily agreed. The first thing I did after I put down the phone was search ‘What is a litany?’ I learned that a litany was a series of religious petitions, and realised I had been writing litanies all my li...

Nick Cave hasn’t been afraid to tackle unpopular issues and in his latest entry to The Red Hand Files, the singer explores mercy and cancel culture. On mercy, Cave wrote that it “allows us the ability to engage openly in free-ranging conversation — an expansion of collective discovery toward a common good. If mercy is our guide we have a safety net of mutual consideration, and we can, to quote Oscar Wilde, ‘play gracefully with ideas.’” While he says that mercy is a quality to be nurtured and aspired to, Cave called cancel culture as its “antithesis” and referred to it as “the unhappiest religion in the world.” Cave wrote: “Cancel culture’s refusal to engage with uncomfortable ideas has an asphyxiating effect on the creative soul ...

Earlier this month, Nick Cave announced that he’ll be doing a special solo performance on July 23. And today (July 13), he dropped the trailer for Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace. In the video, Cave is seen penning some things in a notebook before walking into an empty Alexandra Palace where a piano is positioned in the center of the main hall. Along with the trailer, he talked about the creation of this show. “I loved playing deconstructed versions of my songs at these shows, distilling them to their essential forms – with an emphasis on the delivery of the words,” he wrote in a note to fans. “I felt I was rediscovering the songs all over again, and started to think about going into a studio and recording these reimagined versions at some stage – whenever I could find th...