When We Were Beautiful And Young

 

Last week Mick Harvey, former co-founder of the Birthday Party and member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds announced a new album after almost a decade. His latest sign of life was when he released a couple of months ago a cover version of Marlene Dietrich's A Suitcase in Berlin which will also appear on his new album. I liked this version but forgot to write about it. Now he released When We Were Beautiful And Young another song from this album. And it one of those songs that you listen once and repeat it several times. The track is ethereal and haunting – a powerful reflection of the past delivered with moving grace and presence. The arrangements recall something from Burt Bacharach with a touch of Tindersticks: dramatic and melodic, the lyrics evocative and reflective. Weeping, sweeping strings augment the dramatic scenery and makes me looking forward to the full album.

Armistice

Last Sunday was the day of armistice and a lot of people celebrated the end of WWI. A few of  you wrote some post to remember those who died in this fucking useless war. I shamefully missed to release this last Sunday. So better late than never.

The British author Christopher Richard Barker has invented for one of his books an imposing figure: Edgar Bourchier, war writer who became only 24 years old fallen during the 1st world war, in 1918 his texts are published posthumous, ray strength passes him of 60th and 80th till the pop culture. Thus it has thought up Barker. Sounds really very exciting, great figure. But it becomes even better: Barker has brought to the old Nick's Cave chums Mick Harvey to it to write a whole draught album around this fictional character: The case And Rise Of of Edgar Bourchier And The Horrors Of Being. Barker contributes the sombre war texts as a Bourchier, Australian Harvey lets everything sounds like The Bad Seeds and sometimes like Birthday Party. There were already worse draught albums, a lot of worse ones. But it is more than inevitably that to us in times like these somebody reminds of what excessively nationalistic politicians can do to people and direct our eyes upon the brats of the war. The fact is that we should all remember that we live in peaceful times and care about the things that happened 100 years ago and they hopefully never will come back again.

Mick Harvey / Serge Gainsbourg

Mick Harvey is well known by his long time collaboration with Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and The Birthday Party. Years ago he installed a project translating the songs of Serge Gainbourg into English. His latest record Delirium  Tremens (what a name for a record) was released a few weeks ago and I only found less songs from it in the www. I really like his interpretations of Serge's songs. Almost slow ones with a whispered voice and his genius guitar in the back. Another soundtrack for the time round midnight.