Nick Cave has confirmed that he has recorded his eighteenth studio album, Carnage, alongside longtime Bad Seeds collaborator Warren Ellis.
Back in December, Nick Cave took to his Red Hand Files to pen a letter to fans delving into the “great disappointment” of his scheduled 2020 tour cancellation amid the coronavirus pandemic, whilst promising that he would dedicate his time to recording a new album.
“In the end, with so many things about 2021 remaining unpredictable, including no certainty on whether we would be able to deliver the large scale arena show that we wanted to — and in the way that we wanted to — we felt we had to make the decision to cancel, at least for now,” Cave wrote at the time.“Time to make a record.”
Nick Cave is a man of his words, it’s been mere weeks but the stalwart musician has returned to his site to discuss his time in lockdown, his yearning for live music and an update on the forthcoming album.
“In many ways, lockdown has felt weirdly familiar, like I’ve experienced it before,” he wrote. “I guess this should come as no surprise as I was a heroin addict for many years and self-isolating and social distancing were the name of the game.”
He continued, “I am also well acquainted with the mechanics of grief — collective grief works in an eerily similar way to personal grief, with its dark confusion, deep uncertainty, and loss of control. For me, lockdown feels like a state-mandated version of more of the same — a formalization of the kind of hermit-like behavior to which I’ve always been predisposed, and so, as difficult as it has been to see the devastation and anguish caused by the pandemic — including to the lives of those close to me, and many who have written into the Red Hand Files — I have been doing okay.”
Cave went on to detail the toll that not being able to perform live has had on him: “I am surprised, though, at just how hard not being able to play live has felt. I have come to the conclusion that I am essentially a thing that tours. There is a terrible yearning and a feeling of a life being half-lived. I miss the thrill of stepping onto the stage, the rush of the performance, where all other concerns dissolve into a pure animal interrelation with my audience.”
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“I miss the complete surrender to the moment, the loss of self, the physicalness of it all, the feeding frenzy of communal love, the religion, the glorious exchange of bodily fluids — and the Bad Seeds themselves, of course, in all their reckless splendor, how I miss them. As much as sitting behind my desk can bring me a lot of joy, and the imagination can be a stimulating, even dangerous place, I long for the wanton abandon of the live performance.”
He concluded the entry with confirmation that he and Warren Ellis had hit the studio together: “Anyway, as promised in my last issue, I did go into the studio — with Warren — to make a record. It’s called CARNAGE.”
