View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Culture
23 November 2009

Artist anonymous

Nick Cave, soundtrack-maker

By Sam Kinchin-Smith

The forthcoming film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road is the third proper movie for which Nick Cave has composed an entire soundtrack (working with his fellow Bad Seed/Grinderman, Warren Ellis. (As well as The Proposition (2005) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Cave and Ellis have also scored two relatively obscure documentaries, The English Surgeon and The Girls of Phnom Penh , released in 2007 and 2009 respectively. A selection of their soundtrack work, White Lunar, was released on Mute in September of this year. As Pitchfork put it in their review, “it’s good to have it all in one place.”

That record (and, indeed, Cave’s excellent second novel,published earlier this year) offers yet more evidence for something the New Statesman’s film critic, Ryan Gilbey, was arguing back in March of 2006: “The diversity of this singer-songwriter-actor-novelist-poet is almost unprecedented in the music industry. Dylan’s memoirs were sparkling, Captain Beefheart can paint and Tom Waits is a wonderfully minimalist actor. But few performers spread themselves across so many media without spreading themselves thin. Cave is different.”

Cave’s work on The Road represents, I think, more than just another addition to an ever-expanding body of work: it amounts to a real breakthrough. Having seen the film last week, I can testify that for possibly the first time ever, Cave has succeeded in making his contribution to a project almost entirely anonymous. There is no unnecessarily-distracting cameo here (see the saloon singer in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford); no barely-disguised manifestation of Cave himself (see Bunny Munro in The Death of Bunny Munro); no multi-disciplinary contribution (Cave didn’t just soundtrack The Proposition, he wrote it). Just a simple, relatively sparse score, that didn’t receive a single mention in the 26 pages of production notes I was handed.

And said soundtrack is, in fact, itself relatively anonymous. Melting in and out of scenes, it is only explicitly present when accompanying monologues (lifted, I should add, directly from McCarthy’s text). And even then, it is Ellis’s violin, and not Cave’s piano, that takes centre-stage (the opposite was the case with Jesse James) — indeed, Cave’s contribution to the film is limited to an array of elegantly arranged arpeggios. As Geoffrey MacNab rather crudely put it in his Independent review of The Road, “the music . . . is likewise understated. We don’t hear Cave wailing out Murder Ballads.”

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

This all sounds like an extremely backhanded compliment. It’s not. In many ways, Cave’s slightly megalomaniacal approach to creativity represented the only remaining ground for criticising his work (Bad Seeds purists have been known to bemoan the absolute control Cave took of songwriting responsibilities after 1994’s Let Love In). The Road proves that the man really can do anything — even, that is, take a back-seat.

Sign up to the New Statesman newsletter and receive weekly updates from the team

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU