Black album

The new album of Nick Kave and The Bad Seeds “Skeleton Tree” with the accompanying film “Once again with Feeling”, not that he came out unexpectedly-he simply collapsed at us. Just as at the beginning of this year David Bowie fell on Blackstar . We did not wait for them and did not ask. Such albums are like a thunder among a clear sky. They need to be digested for a long time and words to them, mechanically string one after another on a thread.

Nick Cave Flirted with death in songs his whole career, reaching great heights in this and getting an extensive fan club around the world. Nick Cave began composing songs and murderous ballads after his father’s death in a car accident-at that moment he was 19 years old. Now he is 58. His 15-year-old son Arthur died in July last year, falling from a cliff in Brighton during an unsuccessful LSD trip. At this time, the Skeleton Tree album has already begun to write. After the tragic news, Nick Kave invited Dominica Dominic with heavy 3D-camera to make a documentary about recording the album and save himself from communicating with the press.

Severity is, of course, the key characteristic “ Skeleton Tree ” and“ Once again with feeling ”. Everything is heavy here: the rings and chains are heavy on the cave and its musicians, heavy boots are heavy, the chords of the piano and the swirls of the synthesizers are heavy. The words that sound in the frame and behind the scenes are heavy. Presses the atmosphere.

But there is lightness. Musicians are transferred by jokes. The 15-year-old twin Arthur Erlu is given to the camera to take a picture of the operator who shoots him. And insert a frame shot by the guy. Everyone here is adults, and everything understands everything.

Jim Schonunos makes a compliment to Cave's hairstyle. Everyone laughs knowingly. Shortly before that, Nick Kave talks about how many warm words he receives during this period from the people around him - acquaintances and strangers. And then he wonders: at what point did he turn into a subject of pity?

The son is really in his heart, but he does not live.

Here I want to go to meet the singer and properly defeat his creation. It is believed that albums like “Skeleton Tree” (not that there were so many) are invulnerable to criticism. When the artist flaunts personal injury, critics also become adults and are silently silent - or find the kindest and most generous words.

Nick Cave cannot be accused of cocketing. For this, he is too straightforward. He cannot be accused of striving for banal gestures. For this, he is too smart. And is it necessary to blame him for something? The man experienced an irreparable tragedy and went back to work - to put the tragedy into musical poems.

In the film, Nick Cave says not the most interesting words about the need for improvisation with Warren Ellis, Jim Schonanos and other participants in The Bad Seeds . The episode is much more indicative when Susie, the wife of Kave, shows a drawing made by the dead Arthur in the camera. On it is a windmill and the same rock with which it will break. Drawing in a black frame. Susie wonders why she was inserted into a mourning frame. Nick Kave at this time silently tossed in a chair, trying to find a pose is more comfortable. He knows how creativity works. He called his group "bad seeds".

Later, Nick Cave sits at the table with the director and complains about the incorrectness of the common phrase "He lives in my heart." Yes, the son is really in his heart, but he does not live. And after a pause, he admits that he does not know whether he should sit and discuss all this here. The director with a laugh admits that he himself does not feel comfortable. Everyone in the auditorium is also inconvenient. There is no fourth wall.

This is how creativity works. This album by Nick Kave and the film (they must be perceived together) will result in and have already entailed the most loud and pathetic conclusions and epithets. There is an information water, words are selected. Eric Clapton, for example, in his most famous hits - “ Tears in Heaven ” and “ My Father's Eyes ” - has stable the pain from loss. The album of Nick Cave is already available in iTunes . Together with hundreds of thousands of other albums.

“Nothing makes sense when those whom you love are leaving,” Nick Cave carefully withdraws, probably the simplest and most complex lines that he wrote in his life. Behind the scenes, he says that he became a different person. He expresses the opinion that his song and prose are a transient thing and will soon be forgotten. And then he says that they and his wife decided to be happy in order to take revenge on fate. These feelings, emotions and thoughts are familiar to those who have already lost a loved one. The rest will have to know them. And a heavy 3D camera soars over garages into space in order to significantly look for our planet with a glass eye of the lens.