Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have unfurled their new archival compilation B-Sides and Rarities: Part II via Mute Records. Stream the album below.
The 27-song collection serves as a long-awaited sequel of sorts to the band’s 2005 studio set B-Sides and Rarities, and features unreleased recordings from 2006 to 2020. It was preceded by the lead tracks “Vortex,” “Earthlings,” and a live recording of “Push the Sky Away” with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
“I always liked the original B-Sides & Rarities more than any of our other albums. It’s the only one I’d listen to willingly,” Cave said in a statement. “It seems more relaxed, even a bit nonsensical in places, but with some beautiful songs throughout. There is something, too, about the smallness of certain songs that is closer to their original spirit.”
He continued: “B-Sides & Rarities: Part II continues this strange and beautiful collection of lost songs from the Bad Seeds. I love the final side of the last disc because it reveals the small and fragile beginnings of some of my favorite Bad Seeds songs. ‘Waiting for You’ complete with bizarre ‘canning factory’ rhythm track, a gorgeous ‘Life Per Se’ deemed too sad for Skeleton Tree, and ‘Earthlings’ that some consider the finest track of the Ghosteen sessions.
Stream B-Sides and Rarities: Part II after the jump, and while you’re at it, check out the LP’s stark and simple cover art and full tracklist as well.
In February, the frontman and his Bad Seeds bandmate Warren Ellis released their pandemic-era album Carnage. Two months later, Cage wrote a moving tribute to his collaborator Anita Lane after her death in her early 60s from unspecified causes.
B-Sides and Rarities: Part II Artwork:
B-Sides and Rarities: Part II Tracklist:
01. Hey Little Firing Squad
02. Fleeting Love
03. Accidents Will Happen
04. Free to Walk (with Debbie Harry)
05. Avalanche
06. Vortex
07. Needle Boy
08. Lightning Bolts
09. Animal X
10. Give Us a Kiss
11. Push The Sky Away (Live with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra)
12. First Skeleton Tree
13. King Sized Nick Cave Blues
14. Opium Eyes
15. Big Dream (with Sky)
16. Instrumental #33
17. Hell Villanelle
18. Euthanasia
19. Life Per Se
20. Steve McQueen
21. First Bright Horses
22. First Girl in Amber
23. Glacier
24. Heart that Kills You
25. First Waiting for You
26. Sudden Song
27. Earthlings
