Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – White Lunar

It is hard to tell whether Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' soundtrack collaborations are a result of the return to the harder side of The Bad Seeds, or vice-versa. Either way, the friends and colleagues have become much in demand for their soundtrack works in the last few years. For White Lunar they present a double disc 'greatest hits' of sorts, extracting highlights from the soundtracks to The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a preview of the pairs work from the forthcoming John Hillcoat adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'. The second CD is made up of material from Cave and Ellis' various documentary works, as well as a series of tracks from their archives on the subject of craters.CD1 may prove somewhat of a disappointment for those who have already purchased the soundtracks to The Proposition or The Assassination of Jesse James..., cherry picking as it does from those two records. Those unfamiliar however will delight in the simple beauty of the arrangements on offer. "Song For Jesse" begins proceedings with a jangling vibraphone and Cave's delicate repetitive piano phrases circling in the background. There is an elegiac quality to the arrangements here, the rawness of Ellis' violin playing tempered by the long droning strings and Cave's occasional piano contributions that call to mind desolate landscapes and isolation. The transition to material from The Proposition is marked by a notable air of urgency and claustrophobia- 'The Rider 2' sees violins screech and bass thud as Cave whispers his tales, on a track that could comfortably have appeared on an early Badseeds record, while 'The Rider' is later day Badseeds balladry. If 'The Rider' channels the Badseeds, then 'Martha's Dream' is undoubtedly a Dirty Three number- to the extent that it closes with the theme from 'Some Summers They Drop Like Flies'. The decision not to arrange the previous material on White Lunar chronologically seems an odd one, as the material taken from the forthcoming soundtrack to The Road seems to have much more in common with Cave and Ellis' later soundtrack work. Again building on the interplay between Cave's piano and Ellis' violin, the arrangements, although still melancholy feel warmer, and often resolve rather than ending in suspense.While CD1 offers space and envokes bleak landscapes, CD2 is a very different beast- creating a much more claustaphobic, urban feel with scrapes, crackles and industrial noises, building layer upon layer to create a dense sound that is far from easy listening. Feedback shrieks and whoops throughout 'Srey Leak' from the documentary 'The Girls Of Phnom Penh', giving an opressive feel. Similarly the electric crackles and pulses of 'Me Nea' make for a jarring, intense listen. Elsewhere, the pair use loops and drones to build and enrich their recordings. Although this is billed as a joint venture, one can't help but feel that it is Ellis' input that makes things work here-his virtuoso playing shaping and shifting the subtleties of the music throughout. Although the inclusion of previously released material may be a dissapointment to Cave completists, White Lunar for the most part is able to stand for itself removed from the context of the images they were written for. While none of the themes could be said to be memorable, they are a frequently haunting, potentially challenging and always rewarding listen.