Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Nocturama

by Julia Willis

published: 9 / 2 / 2003

Label: Mute Records
Format: CD

intro

"Raw and uninhibited" twelfth album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, recorded in the space of a week during last year's Australian tour

Nocturama, when creatures stir whose lives take place under the light of the moon and in the shadows. The moment at which the moon lights the sky and the day is forgotten, when your mind twines itself around the thoughts of all those things you could have said, into the recesses of the mind that require the forces of darkness to twist them. The night is lonely before you drift off to sleep and your subconscious comes out to play. From the Birthday Party’s demise in the early 80's and The Bad Seeds’ rising from the ashes in 1983 Nick Cave and his band have toyed with an esoteric melodrama understood by those creatures who see all the beauty in sadness. Described as Leonard Cohen with richer vocals and a better band, 'Nocturama', Nick Cave’s twelfth studio album with the Bad Seeds, has received mixed reviews from critics all agreeing its a far cry from 2001’s 'No More Shall We Part'. Some believe he’s come of age wistfully, growing into a life shaped by experience, others prefer to take tracks like 'Dead Man In My Bed', as a blistering return to their thrashy rock n roll days, and see Cave as the austere naysayer of fire and brimstone. The final track, 'Babe, I’m on Fire' flails wildly for an epic 40 verses over 15 minutes. Episodes like these allow The Bad Seeds-guitarists Blixa Bargeld and Mick Harvey, bassist Martyn P. Casey, drummer Thomas Whydler, percussionist Jim Sclavunos and violinist Warren Ellis- freedom to riot in stormy waters before being pulled back in the still water’s unseen turbulent undercurrents. Fearing many of his earlier albums suffered from overproduction, Cave allowed one week for the learning and recording of the album during some free time during their Australian tour in early 2002 wanting little time for reflection and retouching, rendering the album raw and uninhibited. Whilst there are rancourous fissures in the more recognisable plaintive piano-ballads which follow familiar Bad Seeds themes of love and death, the motif here seems to be an uneasy acknowledgement of the presence of love. 'Rock of Gibraltar' celebrates the bittersweet endurance of love against the odds, but is still tainted, in closing, by the possibility of betrayal. The album’s first track builds hopefully layer by layer, winding around a fluid bassline, nihilistically but acutely aware that ‘it’s a wonderful life, if you can find it.’ Nocturama is that place that’s characteristically Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in its uncharacteristic spellbinding, haunting beauty and guiling comedic wordplay. The night is lonely before you drift off to sleep and your subconscious comes out to play.

Track Listing:-

1 Wonderful Life
2 He Wants You
3 Right Out Of Your Hand
4 Bring It On
5 Dead Man In My Bed
6 Still In Love
7 There Is A Town
8 Rock Of Gibraltar
9 She Passed By My Window
10 Babe, I'm On Fire

Band Links:-

http://nickcave.com/
https://www.facebook.com/nickcaveofficial
https://twitter.com/nickcave
http://www.songkick.com/artists/457613-nick-cave
https://www.youtube.com/c/nickcave
https://www.instagram.com/nickcaveofficial/

Label Links:-

http://mute.com/
https://www.facebook.com/muterecords
https://twitter.com/MuteUK
https://www.youtube.com/user/themutechannel

interviews

Interview (2008)

Jim Sclavunos is the percussionist and drummer in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He talks about working with Cave and the recent reformation of his early group, 70's No Wave punk band, the infamously atonal Teenage Jesus and the Jerks

profiles

Bleddyn Butcher: A Little History – Nick Cave and Cohorts, 1981 – 2013 (2014)

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Bleddyn Butcher: A Little History – Nick Cave and Cohorts, 1981 – 2013

Melanie Smith is impressed by Bleddyn Butcher's new book of photography which documents Nick Cave's career from the early 1980s to the present time

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2010)

features

Where Did It All Go Wrong, Nick Cave? (2013)

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Where Did It All Go Wrong, Nick Cave?

In 'Hitting the Right Note', Jon Rogers, after listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' latest album 'Push the Sky Away', asks where it all went wrong for Cave

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Surbiton Assembly Rooms, Surbiton, 1984 (2013)

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