The reunited Bauhaus this morning released their first new music in 14 years, a single put together during the COVID-19 lockdown that found each of the four members contributing parts they’d recorded separately and without knowledge of what the other musicians were doing — except for a prerecorded beat provided by drummer Kevin Haskins.
The song, “Drink the New Wine,” debuted this morning on the band’s new YouTube channel and was premiered by Rolling Stone. It’s available to purchase on Amazon.com and other platforms.
The band released the following statement along with the new single:
“Drink The New Wine” was recorded last year during lockdown with the four members sharing audio files. The track employs the Surrealists’ ‘Exquisite Corpse’ device whereby each artist adds to the piece without seeing what the others have done. Bauhaus have used this technique in the past to great effect. The title refers to the very first Cadavre exquis’ drawing rendered by André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert and Yves Tanguy which included words which when strung together made up the sentence, ‘Le cadavre exquis boiara le vin nouveau’ (‘The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.”) For the recording, the four musicians each had one minute and eight tracks at their disposal plus a shared sixty seconds plus four tracks for a composite at the end. All done without hearing what the others had laid down. The only common link being a prerecorded beat courtesy of Kevin. The final playback came as synchronistic revelation.
“Drink the New Wine” is the first new music from Bauhaus since 2008’s Go Away White, a reunion album that also spelled the end of that run of the resurrected band.
The reunited band — Haskins, Peter Murphy, Daniel Ash and David J — played three shows in Hollywood in late 2019, then began announcing sporadic headlining concerts and festival appearances for 2020. Those shows were all canceled or postponed due to COVID-19, and Bauhaus finally played again in October 2021 with dates in London and Mexico City.
The group now has a series of festival dates and headlining shows slated for the U.S. and Europe this year.
See the band’s full itinerary below.
Bauhaus tour dates
May 14-15: Cruel World Festival, Pasadena, CA, USA
May 17: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland, OR, USA
May 20: Paramount Theatre, Seattle, WA, USA
May 21: The Masonic, San Francisco, CA, USA
May 22: The Masonic, San Francisco, CA, USA
May 25: Mission Ballroom, Denver, CO, USA
May 27: The Marquee Theatre, Tempe, AZ, USA
June 4: Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona, Spain
Aug. 24: EDP Vilar de Mouros, Vilar de Mouros, Portugal
Sept. 8: Kings Theatre, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Sept. 9: Kings Theatre, Brooklyn, NY, USA
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Cruel World festival — featuring Morrissey, Bauhaus, Blondie, Devo — adds 2nd date
- Morrissey, Bauhaus, Blondie, Devo, Echo & The Bunnymen on board for Cruel World 2022
- Nick Cave, Bauhaus, Bikini Kill, Pavement, JAMC, Massive Attack to play Primavera Sound 2022
- Goodbye, Cruel World: Festival with Morrissey, Bauhaus, Blondie, Devo is canceled
- Bauhaus working to reschedule concerts, hopes to play again ‘as soon as it is possible’
- Bauhaus reunion continues into 2020 with concerts in New York City, London
- Bauhaus roars back to life with first concert in 13 years: Hollywood Palladium setlist + video
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a mess.
Hmm, conflicted. I like the weirdness but I want more noise!
WTF..Bela would be turning in his grave, please your so much better than this
looooove it
Not a fan of that.
This sounds more like studio session jam work from which you might extract ideas to form the basis of a song. Shouldn’t have been released for public consumption.
Love and Rockets were so much better anyways. I wish they were the ones headlining cruel world. Instead I have to suffer through fucking Peter Murphy. Would rather hear Xpress in its entirety. Would make for a much better show.
This is great. Hopefully, a new studio album is in the works.
Now to just send this out to four different DJs to remix their one minute section…that should turn this wreck around. Or not.
This is the Tops!
I saw them live in Hong Kong 1983
I really like Daniel Ash’s part. Very L&R.
I wana see then so stinking bad!!! I love the song!!