Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

This triple album is a veritable treasure trove of lost and seldom heard music by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Almost ten years in the making, Bad Seed multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey spearheaded this release, which comes hot on the heels of the band’s widely acclaimed Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. The sprawling release is an archivist’s dream, reaching back to the flipside of the Bad Seeds’ first seven-inch in 1984 for "The Moon Is In The Gutter,” right through to the 2004 outtake, "Under This Moon.” In between, there are revealing alternate takes, quirky oddities, and genuinely great songs from the seemingly bottomless well of creativity that sustains Cave and his band. Take acoustic versions of "Deanna,” "The Mercy Seat,” and "City of Refuge,” all retrieved from a bonus record that accompanied 1990’s The Good Son. Or how about a Cave and Shane MacGowan duet on Louis Armstrong’s "What a Wonderful World,” a single whose b-sides feature Cave covering the Pogues’ "Rainy Night in Soho” while MacGowan gives the Bad Seeds’ "Lucy” a go (all of which are collected here). A Mark Radcliffe Radio One session produced the epic murder ballad "O’Malley’s Bar,” while a redux version of "Red Right Hand” is clutched from obscurity. All this, plus rarities from No More Shall We Part and Nocturama, completes a stunning retrospective of the Bad Seeds’ basement tapes.