We No Who U R is the first track to be taken from the upcoming Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album Push the Sky Away [February 2013].
Nick Cave, Photo: Ros O'Gorman
At the heart of Push the Sky Away is a naturalism and warmth that makes it the most subtly beautiful of all the Bad Seeds albums. The contemporary settings of myths, and the cultural references that have time-stamped Nick’s songs of the twenty-first century mist lightly through details drawn from the life he observed around his seaside home, through the tall windows on the album’s mysterious and ambiguous cover.
The songs on this album took form in a modest notebook with shellac covers over the course of almost a year. The notebook is a treasured analogue artefact but the internet is equally important to Nick: Googling curiosities, being entranced by exotic Wikipedia entries ‘whether they’re true or not’. These songs convey how on the internet profoundly significant events, momentary fads and mystically-tinged absurdities sit side-by-side and question how we might recognise and assign weight to what’s genuinely important.
Push the Sky Away was produced by Nick Launay and recorded at La Fabrique, a recording studio based in a 19th Century mansion in the South of France, where the walls of the main studio are lined with an immense collection of classical vinyl.
We No Who U R sets this album in our time; we’re living with the consequences of actions and innovations that seemed so progressive in the industrial era. There’s a calm assessment of the gravity of the situation, and humility. This whole album has a generosity of spirit that’s established here by a children’s choir singing ‘we know there’s no need to forgive.’
We No Who U R is available from 3rd December. The track comes as a download with every pre-order album purchase via nickcave.com or iTunes. We No Who U R will also be available as a single download from all digital retailers.
