At the heart of Push the Sky Away is a naturalism and

warmth that makes it the most subtly beautiful of all the

Bad Seeds albums. The contemporary settings of myths,

and the cultural references that have time-stamped Nick's

songs of the twenty-first century mist lightly through details

drawn from the life he observed around his seaside home,

through the tall windows on the album's mysterious and

ambiguous cover. The songs on this album took form in a

modest notebook with shellac covers over the course of

almost a year. The notebook is a treasured analogue artefact

but the internet is equally important to Nick: Googling

curiosities, being entranced by exotic Wikipedia entries

"whether they're true or not". These songs convey how on

the internet profoundly significant events, momentary fads

and mystically-tinged absurdities sit side-by-side and question

how we might recognise and assign weight to

what's Genuinely important.

The album has a clarity and sweet strangeness that's built

upon the refusal to accept limitations, whether they

be the traditional uses and sounds of musical instruments,

lyric styles, or diminished spiritual horizons. It's not

always apparent what instruments the band is playing:

they may be traditional musical instruments but other

sounds are clearly generated by objects unrelated to

musical instruments. What's being created is a collective

musical language that's rich and complex.

"Well, if I were to use that threadbare metaphor of albums

being like children, then Push The Sky Away is the ghost-baby

in the incubator and Warren's loops are its tiny,

trembling heart-beat." Nick Cave

Side 1

1. We No Who U R
2. Wide Lovely Eyes
3. Waters Edge
4. Jubilee Street
5. Mermaids

Side 2

1. We Real Cool
2. Finishing Jubilee Street
3. Higgs Boson Blues
4. Push The Sky Away