Nick Cave

Your Funeral... My Trial sounds far more arranged than I remembered: things sound broader, deeper, from the very off, the title track waltzing in on this marvelous Al Kooper-ish organ swell like the sonic equivalent of ecclesiastical purple trim, one stitch in a quasi-hymnal sweep of glinting detail. (Remastered epiphany one: aren't there echoes here, in the song's melody, of Presley's 'In The Ghetto'?). The bass is monumental, but somehow ghostly. Hear how the singer stretches - lives in - the "here" of "Here I am, little lamb..." Might not the softest song in the world hail from the hardest nights? 'Stranger Than Kindness' has to be near top of my own personal Desert Island list of Cave works. (Albeit credit goes to 'Lane/Bargeld'.) Sheer dream of a timeless yet timely torch song, like yearning or wistfulness made sound, it feels lighter than air yet heavier than sin. Unique arrangement by Bargeld, sonic eddies like warm breath around your ear, discreetly framing Cave sermonising like Orson Welles in Huston's Moby Dick. (I love the way he almost caresses the phrase "they journey, they loiter," and, especially, "Tell me I'm dirty...") Bargeld makes guitars sound like spray, spume or embers. A song you don't need to be some delirious Nick Cave believer to believe in, to adore. - Ian Penman, 2009

Each deluxe double-disc collectors edition contains the remastered stereo album, the new surround mix (5.1 dvd), a specially commissioned short film made by acclaimed UK artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard plus the b-sides from the singles and exclusive sleeve notes.