“The wife’s moved out, and the mistress has moved in,” remarked a friend after the news a few years ago of Mick Harvey’s departure from the Bad Seeds, and the immediate artistic orbit of his school friend and long-time collaborator Nick Cave.
Harvey, despite his relatively enigmatic persona and long-standing association with Cave, has rarely been shy to explore his own artistic interests. Four (Acts of Love) is Harvey’s latest release, a typically deep, meaningful and atmospheric Harvey creative work.As the title suggests, it’s an album in multiple parts, each exploring different aspects of love. The first, Summertime in New York, begins with the cinematic romantic beauty of Praise the Earth (Wheels of Amber and Gold), before the PJ Harvey-penned Glorious takes a darker inquisitive eye. The instrumental Midnight on the Ramparts is Morricone strolling through Central Park, and Tony McKay’s Summertime in New York (a Tony McKay track) interprets ‘60s Greenwich Village folk through a crusty blues lens.
The second act, The Story of Love, peers into the chasm of emotional attachment and finds plenty to contemplate, from the Bad Seeds gospel of God Made the Hammer, to the Springsteen-esque I Wish That I Were Stone to Van Morrison’s The Way You Lovers Do.
A Drop, An Ocean is contemplative to the point of psychological desolation; Ed Kuepper’s The Story of Love is accusing, but that’s what love can be. The final act begins with a reprise of Where There’s Smoke from act 1, and there’s a sense the gloss of initial attraction has worn off, and that’s left is a fading memory; Waylon Jennings and Roy Orbison’s Wild Hearts is that same memory, possibly seen through rose coloured glasses. Fairy Dust wants to rekindle the passion, even if it was just a momentary event. The reprise of Praise the Earth recognises that even an ephemeral moment of emotional pleasure is worth cherishing, just for its own sake.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Best Track: Praise the Earth
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: ED KUEPPER, VAN MORRISON
In A Word: Deep
