STACK #199 May 2021

MUSIC FEATURE

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and I went into the studio was not to make a record. I think, more than anything, we just wanted to spend some time together.” During a couple of days spent making sweet music together “in a kind of fogged fury”, Carnage spewed forth. Then Ellis texted the following to Cave a couple of days later (probably using an old Nokia): “Have you listened to this stuff? I’ll send you the hits. Prepare to be amazed.” “I'm a Botticelli Venus with a penis/ Riding an enormous scalloped fan...” – can you imagine any other singer on the planet dreaming up those lyrics? Throughout, Cave’s menacing growl conjures voodoo magic; often his macabre, poetic delivery is the stuff of toddler nightmares. Ask Uncle Nick to tell your kiddies a bedtime story at your own peril (“I’ll shoot you all for free if you so much as look at me”). The lumbering pace of White Elephant serves social commentary: “A protestor kneels on the neck of a statue/The statue says, ‘I can't breathe’/ The protester says, ‘Now you know how it feels’/ And he kicks it into the sea...” By the time this standout track’s The Flaming Lips-level celebratory chorus kicks in – “A time is coming/ A time is nigh/ For the kingdom/ In the sky...” (a recurring motif) – it sounds as jubilant as a carousel horse galloping to freedom. All together now: “Hand of God! Hand of God! Hand of God! Hand of God!” Bryget Chrisfield most transparent is probably when I have just come out of the fire. I walk into the fire always, and come out more alive. All of which is not for Harper’s Bazaar .” This is only an extract; the full letter is 573 words long. A still concise rebellion against the myth of fixed identity. This fluidity of personality fascinates St. Vincent too. Like David Bowie before her, new albums offer new facets of the self to explore. And now Daddy’s Home . “I’m Daddy now,” St. Vincent says in interviews. These new songs revisit sounds of her youth, records shared with her father in childhood. Artists like Sly &The Family Stone, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, and Labelle. St. Vincent is specific about the references in a conversation with music journalist Eve Barlow; They’re albums from the time when “post-flower child idealism of the ’60s... flipped into nihilism, which I much prefer. Pre-

Carnage by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is out May 28 on vinyl and CD via Goliath Enterprises/ AWAL.

NICK & WARREN'S LATEST ARRIVES ON WAXEN WINGS

O ver calming, elongated strings and a gentle piano melody, Nick Cave pensively ponders: “There are some people trying to find out who/There are some people trying to find out why/And some people aren’t trying to find anything/But that kingdom in the sky.” Enter descending twister noise. Cave repeats, "In the skyyy,” as if slipping from our grasp and disappearing down a black hole. So magnificently visual! After listening to just this

opener, you’ll probably need to press pause and collect yourself before continuing. Cave’s more recent output with The Bad Seeds ( Push The Sky Away, Ghosteen ) closely resembles his film score work with Ellis ( The Proposition, The Road, West Of Memphis ...), and Carnage ’s amorphous song structures and illustrative orchestration demonstrate glorious technicolour in full flight. In his Red Hand Files, Cave revealed of Carnage ’s genesis: “The main reason Warren

A NOTE ON OUR DADDY ST. VINCENT

A short auto-biography. Have you ever written one? Curator, writer and interviewer Paul Holdengräber asks his guests for seven words about themselves, which he reads as an introduction. David Byrne was one such guest. He tried, but didn’t quite make the word count: “Unfinished, unprocessed, uncertain, unknown, unadorned, underarms, underpants, unfrozen, unsettled, unfussy,” were his offerings. Years ago, in December 1946, author Anaïs Nin was asked by the editor of Harper’s Bazaar to supply a few words about herself for use in a magazine profile. She declined. In her reply, Nin writes: “I see myself and my life each day differently. What can I say? The facts lie. I have been Don Quixote, always creating a world of my own. I am all the women in the novels, yet still another not in the novels... My life is not possible to tell. I change every day, change my patterns, my concepts, my interpretations. I am a series of moods and sensations. I play a thousand roles. I weep when

disco, pre-punk.” Or in other words, a time of potential, open exchange and radical reinvention. That sounds like St. Vincent. SimonWinkler

Look out for our interview with St. Vincent in next month's issue!

Daddy's Home by St. Vincent is out May 14 via Loma Vista.

I find others play them for me. My real self is unknown... When I look

68 MAY 2021

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