Another day, another disc from the Miles Davis โ€œOn The Cornerโ€ box set, and someone (John McLaughlin?) appears to have turned up with a sitar. Most bracing. Before we embarked on this, though, we played the new Nick Cave & Warren Ellis soundtrack, a musical sequel of sorts to their score for โ€œThe Propositionโ€ from a couple of years ago.

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Cave seems to have a fairly prodigious workrate these days, which seems to suggest that sensible office hours and a healthy lifestyle can fuel deranged creativity just as effectively as more conventional rockโ€™nโ€™roll debauchery. After the excellent Grinderman set from earlier this year, โ€œThe Assassination Of Jesse Jamesโ€ very consciously presents another side of Cave and Ellis; so instead of bloodthirsty ramalams we get sombre, expansive instrumentals invested with a kind of still, withering gravitas.

No jokes about Gardenerโ€™s Question Time, then. Instead, Cave privileges his high aesthetic side, sometimes lost beneath all the blood and thunder. โ€œThe Assassinationโ€ has a fuller, richer feel than โ€œThe Propositionโ€, and I guess you could perilously trace a creative strand from these gradually unfolding melodies back to โ€œThe Boatmanโ€™s Callโ€.

As with โ€œThe Propositionโ€, I suppose itโ€™d be easy to assume this instrumental music โ€“ calculated to evoke deserts, hard men doing morally indeterminate things and such โ€“ might recall The Dirty Three, given the prominence of Warren Ellis. But Ellisโ€™ violin-playing is again much more subdued than with his own band; there are none of the florid, occasionally showy, flurries that make The Dirty Three, for me, initially impressive but ultimately a bit wearying.

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It sometimes seems as if there are distinct guiding principles behind these Cave extra-curricular activities, as if theyโ€™re ruthlessly managed by him as theoretical projects. Grinderman, I guess, are defined by abandon and irreverence, while โ€œThe Assassinationโ€ is all about dignity and restraint; heโ€™s not averse to wryly mocking himself here, though, hence the opening track being called โ€œRather Lovely Thingโ€, which it is, actually.

I wonder where all this compartmentalising is going to leave the new Bad Seeds album, scheduled for sometime early next year? In theory, Caveโ€™s flagship project is the place where he can move between extremes more easily, probably with a greater focus on Bible imagery. But maybe the two poles heโ€™s visited this year might encourage Cave to go and find an adjusted direction for his main music. Unlikely, but you never know. . .