Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Wild God review - 'close to the bone'

Although it references tragic events in Nick Cave’s personal life, Wild God is an uplifting album from a musician who is ready to live again, writes Fiona Shepherd

Nick Cave | Megan Cullen

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Wild God (PIAS) ****

Fontaines DC: Romance (XL Recordings) ****

Laurie Anderson: Amelia (Nonesuch) ***

On the first Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album since the gauzy, grief-stricken Ghosteen in 2019, Cave is in emotional recovery and the Bad Seeds are back with a bang. Wild God is not quite the raucous war cry of old but it is an album of hope, joy and experience, full of spiritual visitations and intimations.

The Seeds kick in immediately on opening track Song of the Lake but Cave’s protagonist is world weary, a man near the end of his life who now takes pleasure in small things. The title track begins in deceptively mellow mode, but the dark Cave humour is there before the song soars into a desperate prayer, looking for answers.

However, a spring revival is on its way. Frogs begins with a biblical act of violence but then becomes a symphonic spiritual, offering a chance of redemption (“amazed to be back in the water again”) and the blessing of Kris Kristofferson who gets a shout-out in the story.

Joy is close to the bone, opening with a mournful trumpet fanfare and Cave intoning “I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head, I felt like someone in my family was dead”. Given the passing of two of his sons, Arthur and Jethro, in the past decade, there is clearly a personal resonance to the song’s healing visitation from a “flaming boy”.

Conversion sounds like a religious experience, inspired by Cave’s wife and worked up into a mystical fable, with its ambient swirl and sensation of woodwind giving way to a second half of joyous gospel catharsis. O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is) is a tribute to another key woman in Cave’s life, the late singer Anita Lane. Its fond remembrance, laced with vocoder vocals, incorporates a phone message from Lane, further comfort from beyond the grave on an uplifting album from a musician who is ready to live again.

Fontaines DC | Theo Cottle

London-based Dubliners Fontaines DC remain a band apart, manifesting as an indie rock outfit but conjuring magic from the haunting tinkle of percussion, fuzzy bursts of guitar and prowling gothic atmosphere of the title track of their fourth album, Romance. Yes, there is love in its grooves, but much more. The dreamy seduction of Desire is built on an ominous circling guitar pattern before the hefty rhythm section kicks in. Frontman Grian Chatten appears in signature strident quasi-rapping style with the band matching him for raucous rhythmic intent on Starbuster, a track inspired by panic on the concourse of St Pancras.

The silky atmosphere of In the Modern World is not a million miles away from Lana Del Rey’s sultry Californian missives, the softness continues on Sundowner with vocals by guitarist Conor Curley and the James Joyce-inspired Horseness is the Whatness combines the heady eddy of strings with the purposeful thud of drums.

Jim Cass | Jim Cass

Laurie Anderson traces the path of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart’s ill-fated last flight in a piece first performed in 2000 and now updated for release with the participation of singer Anohni, guitarist Marc Ribot, Rob Moose of chamber ensemble yMusic and the Filharmonie Brno.

Anderson narrates from Earhart’s flight diaries and her telegrams home. She is, as ever, a soothing, engaged storyteller and, on Aloft, an elegant harmonizer with her own pitchshifted voice as strings soar upwards. The serene and swelling Crossing the Equator captures the elation of reaching that landmark, while Flying At Night imagines Earhart’s thoughts on being inspired to fly. The tone changes on the filmic, foreboding The Word For Woman and Anderson backs the sadness and desperation of Earhart’s last known communications with unsettling strings.

CLASSICAL

Ruth Gipps: Piper of Dreams (Chandos) ****

There’s a natural charm to the music of English composer Ruth Gipps (1921-1999). Until recently her music remained largely in obscurity, more likely arising from her gender than the rich, seamlessly-crafted music represented on this fetching wind chamber music disc. Juliana Koch (oboe) and Michael McHale (piano) open with the Oboe Sonata No 2, a work amiably pastoral in spirit, its allure defined by an assured but lightweight poignancy. Then there’s the wit and mischief of the quaintly-titled Kensington Gardens Suite, the salt-scented imagery of the Sea-shore Suite, the mildly-dissonant experimentalism of the Oboe Sonata No 1, the fluid enchantment of the unaccompanied oboe in The Piper of Dreams, then with clarinettist Julian Bliss the silken tapestried modality of the Trio for oboe, clarinet and piano. Koch and McHale end with a wistful, nostalgic Threnody. All suitably autumnal and a refreshing discovery. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Alan Barnes & David Newton: ‘Tis Autumn (Woodville records) ****

A relaxed vibe and peerless duet playing defines this recording, as two seasoned figures (and long-time collaborators) on the UK jazz scene, Alan Barnes on alto, tenor and baritone saxophones and clarinets and pianist David Newton, have their empathetic way with a thoughtful choice of repertoire. They sidle easefully into the recording with a Jobim number, Brigas Nunca Mais, the melody flowing from Barnes’s clarinet over Newton’s ever-responsive piano, while alto sax lingers fondly on a Bacharach pairing in which A House Is Not a Home segues seamlessly into Alfie. The autumnal title track, a Henry Nemo composition, sees gruff-toned bass clarinet grumble and sing richly over Newton’s gently blues-inflected accompaniment and the relaxed mood is maintained in Duke Ellington’s lovely Tonight I Shall Sleep With a Smile on my Face. Tenderly rippling clarinet marks the album’s sign off – A Bientôt. Jim Gilchrist