If you know me, you know I'm a massive fan of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I saw Cave and his long-time collaborate and Bad Seeds member Warren Ellis for the first time in March, and the experience was absolutely transcendent.
This Bad Seeds cover album by The Flaming Lips is in collaboration with debut artist, the fourteen-year-old Nell Smith is a winning collaboration. I've heard plenty of Cave covers, and this is positively a revelation, her versions of his classics are so powerful and fresh. I've listened to it several times over the last few days. I just have to get on here and rave about it to my friends.
Nell's despondent and gothic take on the song "Girl in Amber" earned a rave review from Cave himself, who took to his personal blog, The Red Hand Files, to offer his praise.
"This version of ‘Girl in Amber’ is just lovely, I was going to say Nell Smith inhabits the song, but that’s wrong, rather she vacates the song, in a way that I could never do," says Cave. "I always found it difficult to step away from this particular song and sing it with its necessary remove, just got so twisted up in the words, I guess. Nell shows a remarkable understanding of the song, a sense of dispassion that is both beautiful and chilling. I just love it. I'm a fan. Love, Nick."
The instrumental is so understated but so well produced, the 14-year old Nell's haunting vocals are really really highlighted here, and it all just blends so well. I just love this girl's voice. She definitely has something, this project is just so so cool I'm absolutely obsessed.
With the whole sound by the Flaming Lips being so understated, it has me on my third or fourth listen-through noticing small details in her affectation, the littlest things to her timbre and her youthful, haunting voice that are so nuanced and yet incredibly evoking. The instrumental is incredibly round and perfectly moody, The Flaming Lips are incredibly talented and renown artists, but take a backseat to a more nuanced, ambient sound to better support their vocalist. It's simply the beauty of the composition, an extremely well-produced sound that blends everything underneath Nell so perfectly.
I look forward to hearing what comes next for Nell and her original work.
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