Love Letter To A Record: Du0 On Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ ‘No More Shall We Part’

Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.

In this series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.

Du0 – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ No More Shall We Part

To me, love for an entire album is an increasingly rare experience. It takes you back to a time, or a place, or most importantly, the people. You listen to the album over and over, so much so that when one song finishes, you know what song is coming next and the songs are not as meaningful when they are played in a different order to how the artist placed them all those years ago.

And so it is with one of my all-time favourite albums, Nick Cave’s No More Shall We Part. This album shares a place in my heart and takes me back to the early days spent with my girlfriend (now wife). A child of the 80’s and 90’s, I had little musical influence from my family as I grew up, so the grunge bands of the era always spoke to me and my wife opened my eyes to a whole new world of artists that I missed out on the first time around.

I recently attended Cave’s Q&A session in Brisbane and was fascinated to learn more of his writing process. He goes to his office each day and sits at a typewriter and just puts down what comes out with no initial judgment. He believes that there is no such thing as writer’s block and that people who need to be high to create is bullshit, as he is as creative now sober as he ever was at the height of his addictions. He demonstrates one of his tricks to getting a song started multiple times on this album by starting several of his songs with a simple phrase “I thought I’d take a walk today…”, and the places that takes him is incredible.

Tiptoeing between spirituality and blasphemy is seemingly second nature to Cave. ‘God is in the House’ would have to be my favourite song lyrically on the album, while ‘Love Letter’ has to be the greatest love song ever written.

Forever in my heart will be seeing him perform this album live at Brisbane’s iconic Festival Hall. I was so inspired that I wrote a song in the carpark afterwards. Cave’s music is timeless. No More Shall We Part still speaks to me now, as it did all the way back then.

Brisbane-based producer du0’s new single ‘It’s OK’,a brooding and emotive sonic punch of electronica, is out now. Listen below.

Must Read