Nick Cave’s ‘Ghosteen’ album: a triumph of sustained mood

Nick Cave strips back his art to its bare essentials for his latest album, Ghosteen.

Nick Cave, bottom left, and the Bad Seeds.

EXPERIMENTAL

Ghosteen

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

Ghosteen Ltd/Independent

4 stars

Four stars

Ghosteen, Nick Cave's new album.

The most beautiful moment of the 17th album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds arrives five minutes into the title track, and it is preceded by eight songs — about 45 minutes — of swirling, amorphous soundscapes that are entirely devoid of the traditional instruments of rock ‘n’ roll with which this band has been associated since it was founded in 1983. That moment partway through Ghosteen, then, is akin to a shaft of sunlight breaking through heavy clouds. “A ghosteen dances in my hand / Slowly twirling, twirling all around,” sings Cave in the bridge, before being joined by a choir of sighing voices, and then by a gentle drumbeat and deep bass notes while a string section drives the melody. And then, within the space of a minute, the clouds reform.

As an exercise in sustained mood, this album is a triumph. Crafted by Cave and Warren Ellis, his collaborator of more than two decades, this 68-minute work finds the Australia-born, Britain-based songwriter chasing his quarry down a fascinating artistic rabbit hole that was first signposted on 2013’s Push the Sky Away, and again, more clearly, on 2016’s Skeleton Tree. That album was written and largely recorded prior to the sudden death of his 15-year-old son, Arthur. Ghosteen is the first new music Cave has released since that terrible event, and it’s impossible to subtract that knowledge from the equation while processing these 11 compositions. Ellis’s spectral atmospherics, strings and loops do much of the musical heavy lifting, while Cave’s lyrics are by turns fantastical and rooted in reality. In second track Bright Horses, he sings of “horses of love” with flaming manes, only to reject metaphor in the next verse. “Horses are just horses and their manes aren’t full of fire,” he sings. “And the fields are just fields, and there ain’t no Lord.” Ghosteen is not easily accessible to new listeners, and devoted Bad Seeds followers might struggle to connect with this lateral shift in sound. It’s an emotionally demanding work that I found hard to play more than once per day, yet Cave’s evolving artistry continues to inspire a sense of awe.

Andrew McMillen

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The Dark Pattern, by Phil Slater.

JAZZ

The Dark Pattern

Phil Slater

Earshift Music

4.5 stars

Phil Slater, one of the world’s great trumpet players, has produced a two-hour suite that, in jazz terms, is a radical new departure. Australian landscapes provide the inspiration, and he is accompanied by four brilliant musicians: pianist Matt McMahon, bassist Brett Hirst, drummer Simon Barker and saxophonist Matt Keegan. The compositions tend to be fragmentary and the resultant improvisations often sound tentative, suggesting that the music is subject to a variety of new, hitherto unknown, constraints. To some extent the sort of minimalism one associates with The Necks is present. But, while that trio eschews technical displays, Slater opens out into fullness when appropriate, in breathtaking displays of trumpet virtuosity. The Dark Pattern will divide the jazz world. Some traditionalists may find it uneventful, while new music fans will welcome a bold, fascinating experiment.

Eric Myers

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DZ Deathrays’ Positive Rising.

ROCK

Positive Rising Pt 1

DZ Deathrays

I Oh You

3.5 stars

DZ Deathrays began as a guitar-and-drums two-piece more than a decade ago, and in many ways its fourth album is the debut of DZ Deathrays 2.0. The duo has become a trio and its groove-heavy sound has been replaced by layered guitar textures and frontman Shane Parsons’s solid songwriting. This isn’t a complaint; there’s only so far you can go by brazenly ripping off the work of your influences. Single IN-TO-IT and Year Of The Dog — featuring one of those influences, Matt Caughthran from LA punks The Bronx — harbour the last vestiges of party-bangers-DZ-Deathrays-1.0, riffs and all.

“Creating something worthwhile keeps me more than satisfied,” Parsons sings on album closer Silver Lining, a song about the highs and lows of making music. In this new evolution of the band, it’s exciting to see the group so clear-eyed as it looks to the future. Maybe rock’s not quite dead yet after all.

Sophie Benjamin

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Horizons by Bag Raiders.

ELECTRONIC

Horizons

Bag Raiders

Island Records Australia

3.5 stars

When released in 2010, the debut Bag Raiders album was anchored by earworm Shooting Stars and pulsating house cuts like Sunlight. It’s challenging, early on, to find a similarly enduring hit on Jack Glass and Chris Stracey’s follow-up, but that’s not to say Horizons isn’t a mature, entertaining return. The duo has largely eschewed harder-hitting electronica last heard on 2014’s excellent Nairobi EP in favour of more mid-tempo, vocal-led electro-pop. Their songwriting is strong, and appearances by The Kite String Tangle on Lightning, and Panama on the bouncy club cut How Long both impress. Opener Faraway is euphoric, bound by a chugging beat and sunny keys, while I Need You’s strings and soaring vocal makes for an early album standout. Wild At Heart is cheesy and forgettable; much better is Back To Myself, with its shuffling beats and 90s throwback vibe, and the emotive and deep Anchor.

Tim McNamara

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Ash Grunwald’s Mojo.

BLUES

Mojo

Ash Grunwald

Bloodlines

3 stars

Australian bluesman Ash Grunwald’s ninth album is a patchwork affair. Of the 13 tracks on Mojo, five are covers, one is an updated version of a Grunwald song from 2012 (Trouble’s Door), while the album’s first single, Hammer, was released in 2017. Two more (Whispering Voice and Ain’t My Problem) have been released as singles since, both also featuring guest vocalists (Kasey Chambers and Josh Teskey, respectively). The long list of ring-ins, in fact, almost upstages Grunwald himself. Guitarist Joe Bonamassa sets fire to the Townes Van Zandt cover, Waiting Around To Die, and Kim Wilson blows searing harp on both Trouble’s Door and Tom Waits’s Goin’ Out West, while Cat Empire trumpeter Harry James Angus also invests two tracks with welcome instrumental variation. Otherwise, Grunwald’s guitar work, albeit much improved, and boogie fixation tend to overwhelm proceedings.

Phil Stafford

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THIS WEERK’S PLAYLIST BY JOHN WILLIAMSON, SINGER-SONGWRITER

Five songs on high rotation

01. Lay Lady Lay Bob Dylan

The work of a master wordsmith, with a completely original chord structure.

02. I Shot the Sheriff Bob Marley

A great example of reggae. I truly love the unusual bass lines in that genre — the spaces are irresistible to dance to.

03. The Drover’s Boy Ted Egan

An extremely powerful song about our outback history.

04. I’ll Be Gone Spectrum

A favourite of mine and, as I love playing blues harp, it was an ideal song to play in pubs before I wrote more of my own.

05. Dang Me Roger Miller

This song has what Roger called “mouth guitar” and his sense of humour gave me a licence to be a bit crazy in Old Man Emu.