Nick Cave used his fan Q&A newsletter “The Red Hand Files” to announce this morning the release next week of a new Bad Seeds record, a double album called Ghosteen that will include eight songs on Part 1 and a two “long songs” linked by a spoken-word piece on Part 2.
The new album will be Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ seventeenth overall, and the first since the band’s spare 2016 album Skeleton Tree. Cave did not offer an exact release date, but answered a fan’s question of “When can we expect a new album?” by saying, “You can expect a new album next week.”
“The songs on the first album are the children,” Cave wrote. “The songs on the second album are their parents. Ghosteen is a migrating spirit.”
No other details of the album are yet known, as it has not been announced on the band’s website or social media channels — only through Cave’s “The Red Hand Files” newsletter. The cover art, which Cave shared in a second “Red Hand Files” email this morning, is posted above.
Update: Ghosteen will premiere at 5 p.m. Eastern time Oct. 3 on YouTube, then will be released digitally on Oct. 4. The 2CD and 2LP physical editions won’t be released until Nov. 8.
Here’s the full tracklisting:
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ghosteen
Part 1
1. “The Spinning Song”
2. “Bright Horses”
3. “Waiting For You”
4. “Night Raid”
5. “Sun Forest”
6. “Galleon Ship”
7. “Ghosteen Speaks”
8. “Leviathan”
Part 2
1. “Ghosteen”
2. “Fireflies” (Spoken word)
3. “Hollywood”
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Conway Savage, longtime keyboardist for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, 1960-2018
- Watch: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds perform haunting ‘Rings of Saturn’ on Colbert
- Watch: Nick Cave finds Bobby Gillespie in London audience for show-closing duet
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds to release sprawling new best-of ‘Lovely Creatures’
- Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, ‘We No Who U R’ — first single off new album
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds to release new album ‘Push the Sky Away’ in February
This album is especially fantastic.