Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have announced details of a new album, Skeleton Tree, and a “stark, fragile and raw” documentary film.
The album, Cave’s 16th with his longstanding backing band and his first studio album since 2013’s chart-topping Push the Sky Away, is set to be released on 9 September, while the accompanying documentary, One More Time With Feeling, will be shown in 650 cinemas around the world on 8 September.
The latter, directed by Andrew Dominik – who previously worked with Cave and Bad Seed Warren Ellis on the 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – features a live performance of the album, “interwoven with interviews and footage and accompanied by Cave’s intermittent narration and improvised rumination”.
Filmed in both 3D and 2D, it is described as “delving into the tragic backdrop of the writing and recording of the album” – Cave’s teenage son Arthur died after falling from a cliff near Brighton in July 2015, midway through the album’s making – and “a testament to an artist trying to find his way through the darkness”.
