album // Burnin' The Ice
Germany's Die Haut (The Skin) have become
linked inextricably with Nick Cave, not least because Die
Haut's drummer Thomas Wydler is perhaps better known as a
Bad Seeds stalwart, while bassist / guitarist Cristoph
Dreher went on to produce a number of promo videos for Nick
Cave And The Bad Seeds, including the memorable video for 'The Mercy
Seat'. Cave's association with Die Haut arose from his fortuitous
upping of sticks to the notably artistic Kreuzberg district of Berlin,
a move which not only lead to this collaboration album, but also
his creative links with Einstürzende Neubauten's Blixa
Bargeld (a Bad Seed until very recently) which lead to his post-Birthday
Party group as well as the And The Ass Saw The Angel
novel. It could also be the case that Cave drew inspiration from
Die Haut's image judging by the 1982 photos that adorn the lavish
reissue of Burnin' The Ice - the sharp, tailored suits favoured
by Die Haut have become something of a Bad Seeds trademark over
the years.
Burnin' The Ice was originally released in
1982, toward the end of The Birthday Party, and originally consisted
of seven instrumental tracks by the band - the aforementioned Wydler
and Dreher, along with guitarists Martin Peter and Remo
Park. Cave wrote lyrics for four of the tracks. For this remaster,
an enhanced video track has been added, as has a booklet containing
some great photographs and detailed biographical information, all
inside a glossy digipack case.
'Stow-a-Way' is a monolithic slice of turgid, viral
rock driven onward by piercing snares, leaden guitars and a duel
between Susanne Kuhnke's propulsive bass synth and Dreher's
bass guitar. Cave supplies a punk vocal spanning the gap between
his hollering on The Birthday Party's latter material and his scarecrow
blues tones on From Her To Eternity. In fact, the nautical
theme of this track links directly to that album's distraught 'Cabin
Fever', except that the musicians remain on course rather than themselves
being shipwrecked. 'Tokyo Express', an instrumental is a clever
number wherein the instruments gather and accelerate tightly, evoking
the mechanical motion of a train's pistons and engine. The result
is a Neubauten rhythmic precision finished with inchoate guitar
squalls.
'Truck Love' is an erratic, messy track wherein
Cave ambitiously tries to squeeze too many words into short lines,
giving this track an improvised edge which the decaying, variable
velocity of the instruments only exacerbates. 'Fuck love / This
is truck love' runs the 'chorus', a typically manic Cave delivering
those lines with malevolent glee. The curt, snare-driven 'The Victory'
reminds me of Conny Plank's motorik production on DAF's debut,
while blistering punk guitar lines are traded that occasionally
evoke the edgy air made by Bruce Gilbert and Colin Newman
on Wire's Pink Flag.
Nick Cave steps up again on 'Pleasure Is The Boss',
a drilling punk number with a vocal that reminds me of Tender
Prey's 'Sunday's Slave' - it's a turgid ear-scraping punk blues
given an urgency by thick bass and Wydler's intense drumming. Cave
singing a lyric that details the thrall of dark pleasures pretty
much explains why Cave became an ambassador for young goths in the
eighties. His wasted vocal on 'Dumb Europe', a sludgy, droning,
feedback number is simultaneously reminiscent of terrace and national
anthems, albeit largely mumbled and incoherent amidst the cacophanous
and impenetrable wall of sound Die Haut hew from their instruments
- the whiteout is heightened by crashing, tinnutus-inducing cymbals.
Closing track, 'This Flame Will Never Die' is really little above
demo quality, and barely over two minutes in length, and reminds
me very much of early New Order.
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