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Friday, October 09, 2026
2004 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues - The Lyre of Orpheus
2004 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -
Abattoir Blues - The Lyre of Orpheus
Abattoir Blues - The Lyre of Orpheus
When Blixa Bargeld left Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, who would have predicted his departure would result in one of the finest offerings in the band's catalog? Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus is a double CD or, rather, two completely different albums packaged in one very handsome box with a stylish lyric booklet and subtly colored pastel sleeves. They were recorded in a total of 16 days by producer Nick Launay (Kate Bush, Midnight Oil, Girls Against Boys, Silverchair, INXS, Virgin Prunes, et al.). Abbatoir Blues, the first disc in the set (packaged in pink, of course), is a rock & roll record. Yeah, the same guy who released the Boatman's Call, No More Shall We Part, and Nocturama albums has turned in a pathos-drenched, volume-cranked rocker, full of crunch, punishment -- and taste. Drummer Jim Sclavunos' aggressive, propulsive kit work is the bedrock of this set. It and Mick Harvey's storm-squall guitar playing shake things loose on "Get Ready for Love," which opens the album. As Cave goes right for God in the refrain -- "get ready for love" -- in the maelstrom, a gospel choir roaring "praise Him" responds. His tense, ambivalent obsession with theology is pervasive; he mocks the Western perception of God in the heavens yet seeks the mystery of His nature. That he does so while careening through a wall of noisy rock damage is simply stunning. It leaves the listener revved up and off-center for what comes next. The chorus -- members of the London Community Gospel Choir -- is prevalent on both records; the Bad Seeds' arrangement utilizes them wisely as counterpoint and mirror for Cave's own baritone. "Cannibal's Hymn" begins as a love song musically; it's chocked with Cave's dark wit and irony and ends far more aggressively while retaining its melody. The single, "Nature Boy," finds itself on Scalvunos' big beat. Cave and his piano use love's irony in contrast with cheap innuendo as underlined by the choir in their best soul croon. "Let Them Bells Ring" is a most dignified and emotionally honest tribute to Johnny Cash and the world he witnessed. The Western wrangle of "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" references Morricone's desert cowboy groove against a swirling cacophony of drums, bashing piano, and the chorus swelling on the refrain, while Cave name drops Johnny Thunders and poet Philip Larkin. The pace is fantastic; its drama and musical dynamics are pitched taut, with lulls in all the right places.
The Lyre of Orpheus, by contrast, is a much quieter, more elegant affair. It is more consciously restrained, its attention to craft and theatrical flair more prevalent. But that doesn't make it any less satisfying. It is a bit of a shock after Abbatoir Blues, but it isn't meant for playing immediately afterward; it is a separate listening experience. The title track tells the myth's tale in Cave's ironical fashion, where God eventually throws a hammer at the subject and Eurydyce threatens to shove his lyre up his nether orifice. Warren Ellis' swampy bouzouki and Thomas Wydler's more stylized drumming move the band in the tense, skeletal swirl where chorus and Cave meet the music in a loopy dance. But in "Breathless," the bard of the love song emerges unfettered at the top of his poetic gift. On "Babe You Turn Me On," he wraps a bawdy yet tender love song in a country music waltz to great effect. But on this album, along with the gentleness, is experimentation with textures and wider dimensions. The sparser sound is freer, less structured; it lets time slip through the songs rather than govern them -- check the wall of Ellis' strings married to a loping acoustic guitar on the moving "Carry Me" as an example. Cave's nastiness and wit never remains absent for long, however, and on "O Children," the album's closer, it returns with this skin-crawlingly gorgeous ballad of murder and suicide. This set is an aesthetic watermark for Cave, a true high point in a long career that is ever looking forward. (AllMusic)
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Procol Harum
A Whiter Shade of Pale
(1967)
In memoriam of my brother
320
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Various - Soul Mixed Vol 13 2026 320 😎
Yeah haven't posted one of these for awhile, have compiled about 124 volumes to date, will post another later today. And there will be two of the Reggae Mixes posted today as well, 138 compiled of these.
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Thursday, October 08, 2026
Various - From the Ground Up - 12. US 90-91 2026 VBR 😎
12. US 90-91
From the Ground Up
An earwitness account of the electronic dance music revolution on Belgian dancefloors from 1984 to the mid nineties.
By Captain Crash
Warning this compilation is VBR, the majority of tracks are 320, but some are in lower bit rates.
Thanks to Captain Crash for sharing this home made compilation with us on Vibes. 4 more volumes to come in this 16 volume series.
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Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Chip Taylor & The New Ukrainians
Fuck All The Perfect People
(2012)
320
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2013 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away (Deluxe Edition)
2013 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away (Deluxe Edition) @320
Nick Cave’s apparent inability to stop making music has now been our gain for four decades. After spending much of the last seven years with Grinderman, Cave has reconvened with the Bad Seeds for their fifteenth record. Their last outing, 2008’s Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!, saw them sharpening their edge after a series of mellower releases. On Push the Sky Away, Cave & co. cleanse their palettes and nail a sound that suggests they are coming to terms with their status as the elder statesmen of rock.
A soft-spoken record with a sharp focus but no real itinerary, Push the Sky Away’s nine songs are dim and distilled, antithetical to the snarl that Cave honed with Grinderman. It’s as if he deliberately placed these songs on the shelf for a year so that they could collect a layer of dust. His internal monologue is somehow redemptive, but more fragmented than usual, uniting his traditional themes of religion, sex, love, violence, sex, and mortality with the shock of the new. Case in point: The smoky “Higgs Boson Blues,” which combines classic Cave (“Hear a man preaching in a language that’s completely new”) with non sequiturs like “Hannah Montana does the African Savannah.” It’s rare for Cave’s attempts to infuse modernity into his lyrics to be this clunky, but the pop culture references almost end up being worth it for the double takes they prompt.
Much like his band, Cave’s weathered voice musters power slowly and steadily. Even when he is referencing Ms. Montana or Wikipedia, the weight he puts behind his words summon an atmosphere so blackened that it belies the content. He sounds more like a grizzled, dirty-minded old man than ever before, which lends itself neatly to the record’s themes.
Thse smaller pleasures aside, Push the Sky Away skillfully utilizes delicate contrasts to build tension, all of which leads to two great moments of release. The first is the sublime “Jubilee Street.” Cave tells the story of a prostitute who becomes pregnant (“A ten ton catastrophe on a sixty pound chain”) as a wiry guitar line bobs and weaves through ashen percussion and Warren Ellis’ delicate veil of strings. The second release comes on the title track, which closes the album out. It’s built around an unshakeably haunting organ tone, and as Cave repeats “Keep on pushing,” it’s obvious that journey was worth the struggle.
A few songs revisit styles that Cave and the Bad Seeds have had success with in the past. “Water’s Edge” is rattled off in semi-spoken word in the vein of “The Mercy Seat,” and “We No Who U R” plays like a more solemn rendition of “Abbatoir Blues.” The occasional flashback notwithstanding, Push the Sky Away is as wonderfully subdued as anything they’ve ever done, and there’s currently no group that can wring more value from their age and experience. A lot of bands will scream at you to get their point across. Push the Sky Away has the ability to move without raising its voice above a whisper. (BeatsPerMinute)
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Clutter – Sugar Rush 320 😎
All tracks are 320 except Unbothered which is 256, sorry I tried to replace it, but all I found were the same, even converting from a flac version, it would only convert to 256. There is a replacement 320 for the 256 one. It's in the comments.
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Dixie Fried Hep Katz
Dixie Fried Hep Katz
(2020)
320
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