Ghosteen (2019)

Ghosteen is the seventeenth studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It was released on 4 October 2019 on Ghosteen Ltd and on 8 November 2019 on Bad Seed Ltd, both the band's own imprints. Ghosteen is a double album—the band's first since Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus (2004)—and the final part of a trilogy of albums that includes Push the Sky Away (2013) and Skeleton Tree (2016).

Produced by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, Ghosteen was written in the aftermath of the death of Cave's son Arthur in 2015. It was recorded primarily in Malibu and West Hollywood, California in the United States, with further sessions in Germany and England. Cave's lyrics are more abstract than his earlier narrative-based writing, and explore themes of loss, death and existentialism, as well as empathy, faith and optimism. Like Skeleton Tree, the album features extensive use of synthesizers, loops and ambient elements, particularly the minimal use of drums and percussion.

Upon its release Ghosteen was met with widespread critical acclaim. It received several perfect scores and is the highest-rated album of 2019 and the 2010s decade (tied with Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly) on Metacritic. The album placed in the top 10 album charts in several countries and was included in several publications' year-end and decade-end lists of best albums. Both European and North American tours in support for Ghosteen were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with all shows rescheduled to later dates in 2021.

Background

In July 2015, during the recording sessions for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' sixteenth studio album Skeleton Tree (2016), Nick Cave's 15-year-old son Arthur died after falling from the Ovingdean Gap near Brighton, England. Skeleton Tree and the related documentary film One More Time with Feeling were released the following year; Skeleton Tree's lyrical themes and its "bleak and disturbing" sound led to misconceptions that the album was entirely about Arthur's death. The majority of the songs on the album, however, were written prior to his death, with Cave only improvising and amending subsequent lyrics during the album's final sessions.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds returned to live performances in January 2017 and four months later released the compilation album Lovely Creatures: The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2017), which was originally due for release in 2015. In April 2018, Cave began a series of initially limited question-and-answer events called Conversations with Nick Cave, in which he explored the relationship with his audience; Cave's efforts in engaging directly with his fans continued in September 2018 when he began a blog, The Red Hand Files, with a similar concept where fans send in questions. In the same month, Cave's longtime keyboardist Conway Savage—a member of the band since 1990—died of a brain tumor about a year after his diagnosis Ghosteen was ultimately dedicated to Savage; however, Nick Cave discussed that the title of the album and lyrical imagery used is based on metaphysical conversations with Arthur. In the weeks after his death, the band released the extended play Distant Sky: Live in Copenhagen (2018) and premiered a full-length concert film of the same name.

Recording

Ghosteen was recorded in various locations in the United States, England and Germany between early 2018 and early 2019, with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis heading production. Initial "improv" sessions began at Retreat Studios in Brighton, England in spring 2018, with a minimal setup of Cave on piano and Ellis on a Yamaha Reface DX synthesizer "sketch[ing] out pieces of music" together; the sessions lasted approximately a week.

Ellis selected 20 tracks from the Retreat sessions to continue recording at Woodshed Recording Studios in Malibu and NightBird Recording Studios in West Hollywood, California in the US some months later. The Woodshed sessions—during which most of the album was recorded— were held in a single room "surrounded by an Eden-like garden." Cave and Ellis lodged in the house attached to Woodshed for the duration of the sessions, which was subsequently destroyed by the 2019 California wildfires.

Further sessions were held at Candy Bomber Studio in Berlin, Germany and at Air Studios in London, England. The Air sessions featured the recording of a string ensemble with orchestrator Ben Foster. By January 2019, Cave said he and the Bad Seeds had "nearly finished a new record". Ghosteen was subsequently mixed by Cave, Ellis, Lance Powell and Andrew Dominik at Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California and mastered by Chris Gehringer.