Before I listened. I read the accompanying booklet from cover to cover. That was unusual. I wanted to read the lyrics first, to see what Nick Cave had on his mind. I wanted to know the players, I wanted to know who played what, whose voices would I hear on the tracks.
I was a bit "under the weather," so I came to this new work in a feverish state. Maybe that had something to do with my experience? I put Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds new album "Ghosteen" on the CD player, affixed my headphones to my head, and stretched out on the couch like an expectant patient.
It was a first-listen. What to say? An extraordinary experience. As the music played, as Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and the band conjured up an extraordinary sound, vivid images flooded my consciousness. When I say vivid images, I mean I fell into a deep visionary state; hallucinatory, enveloping. I found myself swimming in amazing, other-worldly scenes. The images over-powered, overwhelmed my consciousness. I believe it was the combination of the language and music. perfectly realized and conveyed that did the trick. It wasn't just the lyrics, it wasn't just the sounds, it was the combination of lyric, human voice and musical sounds that transported me to another place. A beautiful alchemy of imagery & sound.
It is all impossible to explain. Words fail.
It was a powerful experience. No doubt. And what do I think was on Nick Cave's mind? I don't want to try to sum it up, but his voice, and the voices that welled-up and supported his, penetrated my consciousness in a very deep and unique way. Rare. Unusual. I wondered if this was the sound that a creative, intelligent, fiercely unique human being makes when his soul is grievously-wounded. A Grievous Angel. The sound of a being blown wide open by loss, by mystery, by pain, by love and the suffering suffusing the world. God and the lack of God hovers overs this recording.
A magic, a spirit, an energy of yearning haunts this work.
Words. What words does this record evoke?
Sacred. Spiritual. Shimmering. Magical. Beautiful. Dreamy. Stunning. Exhilarating. Float-y. Heart-Breaking. Mysterious. Visionary. Breath-Taking. Clairvoyant.
Those images that rose up in my consciousness will be with me always, even as they seem to fade into the mists. So real. So strange. The experience is burned deep into my being. Indelible.