【搬运译】Pitchfork评Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 2019年单曲《Ghosteen》

搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）

翻译：Peter D

审译：Lynn Liu

排版：Ryan-Chopin

Ghosteen is overwhelming by design. After two studio albums that were sprawling in scope but concise in form, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ new double album serves as the heavenly epilogue, with the 62-year-old songwriter’s writing at its most hallucinogenic and emotionally piercing. It’s music that demands attention, space, time. The 12-minute title track—one of two lengthy concluding songs that Cave describes as “parents” to the preceding eight songs’ “children”—is its most stunning composition.

歌曲“Ghosteen”蓄意给人以难以抗拒之感。Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds在发行了两张内容蔓延开来却又形式精简的专辑之后，他们的最新双碟专辑就如同神圣庄严的尾声，而其中这位62岁的创作人更是带来了他最具致幻感受同时也最刻骨铭心的作品。这是需要集中注意、需要空间、需要时间的音乐。这首12分钟的专辑同名曲目——同时也是被Cave称作“父母”的两首极长的专辑收尾曲目之一，前8首歌也相对应地被称作“孩子”——便是专辑中光芒最夺目的一首作品。

Fitting for a pair who have found a prolific part-time job scoring films, Cave and longtime collaborator Warren Ellis tell an entire story with the arrangement: part ambient, part piano ballad, part psychedelic prog showstopper. Accompanied by strings and bells and sci-fi synths, its sweeping rise and fall is structured to take your breath away. Cave’s narrative is just as transportive. His voice is weary—as old as he has ever sounded—and his visions come in disorienting bursts. At one point, he diverts to an Inland Empire-style fairytale-turned-nightmare, where a family of bears “age a lifetime” as they watch TV together. Elsewhere, he sings about hope and hopelessness, about dancing in joy and washing the clothes of people we’ve lost. “Love’s like that, you know,” he observes.

与Dave和他的长期合作伙伴Warren Wills这对高产的业余电影配乐师的身份相称的一点就是，他们利用专辑编排结构讲述了一个完整的故事：一部分氛围乐，一部分钢琴民谣，一部分精彩绝伦的前卫迷幻摇滚。伴随着弦乐、铃声和电子合成器，波澜起伏的结构让人叹为观止。Cave的叙事有着极佳的表达效果。他的声音听上去十分疲惫——正如他一直以来听上去的那么老——而他刻画的意象则会突然迸现。在某一刻，他开始转而描述一个《内陆帝国》风格（译者注：实验惊悚电影）的童话式噩梦场景，一家熊“一辈子”坐在一块儿看着电视。除此之外，他还歌唱着失望与绝望，唱着在欢愉中跳舞和为我们失去了的人洗衣服。他评论到：“爱正是如此，你知道的。”

Compared to Cave’s other recent epics, like 2013’s “Higgs Boson Blues” and “Jubilee Street,” this song doesn’t find catharsis in the Bad Seeds’ ragged, dramatic crescendos. Instead, its climax arrives with a surreal chorus, where Cave’s voice gets coated in effects that feel jarringly inorganic—a dash of CGI from an artist more interested in stark documentary as of late. It’s the loudest the album really gets, though the fanfare doesn’t last long. The music slows down, the key changes back to a minor one, and the dream—a glowing figure dancing in his palm—fades away, leaving a deep void at the song’s core. “There’s nothing wrong with loving something you can’t hold in your hand,” Cave sings later, as he gestures toward a world filled with both love and pain. In his recent work, he’s come startlingly close to summoning both with each breath.

相比起Cave其他近期的史诗般的佳作，比如2013年的“Higgs Boson Blues”和“Jubilee Street”，这首歌里并没有在Bad Seeds乐队那粗糙又戏剧化的渐强音中疯狂宣泄。相反的，它的高潮伴随着梦幻般的副歌出现，其中Cave的声音经过重重处理变得刺耳到几乎不像是人声——像是一个对简陋直接的纪录片更感兴趣的艺术家最近突然用上了计算机图像合成技术。这是整张专辑真正最大声的地方，虽然这段喧嚣也并没持续多长时间。音乐又渐渐慢下来，音调也重新变低，而那个梦——那发着微光在他的手心中舞蹈的人形——也逐渐消逝，在歌曲的核心留下深深的空白。“爱上一个无法把握在手心的人并没有什么错，”Cave稍后唱到，一边指向了一个爱与痛苦并存的世界。更令人称奇的是，在他最近的作品中，他已经几乎能够在一呼一吸间同时召出二者。