Nick Cave is working on a new album that he’s planning to bring out with the Bad Seeds this year.
“This is both good news and bad news. Good news because who doesn’t want a new Bad Seeds record? Bad news because I’ve got to write the bloody thing,” Cave wrote in his most recent post on The Red Hand Files.
“I started the process at 9am on January 1st. It is now January 6th – nearly a week has passed and I’ve written a few things but they aren’t very good, or maybe they are, it’s difficult to tell,” he added. “A kind of doldrums has set in, perennial and predictable.”
Candid in his admission, Cave said it’s the same with every record: “I feel that familiar feeling of lack, like I’m a big, dumb blank thing in a suit.”
“I’m starting to get an infuriating sing-song voice in my head that actually rhymes, like a madness. Like sadness.”
It has been four years (and a pandemic) since the last album of new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds material, Ghosteen, which came out in 2019, although they followed it up with B-Sides & Rarities (Part II) in 2021.
Cave has been busy with solo work since then, releasing Carnage in 2021 with collaborator Warren Ellis, and spoken-word album Seven Psalms last year – both of which were documented on film in This Much I Know to be True.
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Ellis and Cave toured Australia late last year, including a spectacular show at Hanging Rock.
Cave’s memoir, Faith, Hope and Carnage, was released in September last year, and compiles over 40 hours’ worth of interviews with friend and co-author, journalist Sean O’Hagan.
“This is the first interview I’ve given in years,” Cave said when the project was announced. “It’s over 40 hours long. That should do me for the duration, I think.”
The book reflects of grief and art following the death of Cave’s 15-year-old son, Arthur, in 2015.
Tragically, Cave’s eldest son Jethro also passed away last year.
