MARIANNE FAITHFULL ‘Negative Capability’

Album release : November 2nd 2018 On BMG

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‘Negative Capabilityi’ is ’s 21st album and the most emotionally powerful of her 54-year recording career. Facing down arthritis and bolstered by collaborators including , , Rob Ellis, and , ‘Negative Capability’ is charged with brutal honesty and autobiographical reflection as she addresses losing old friends, her loneliness living in her adopted city of Paris, and love.

Driven by her supernatural reinterpretative skills, florid lyricism, battle against the pain she lives with, and realised with her stellar group of musicians, ‘Negative Capability’ is Marianne’s unflinchingly honest and relentlessly beautiful late- masterpiece. The stark emotional heft, exquisitely framed by ornately sensitive musical backdrops can only be likened to the late-life works by Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen.

“It’s the most honest album I’ve ever made,” she says. “I’ve always tried not to reveal myself. There’s nothing like real hardship to give you some depth. I’ve had terrible accidents and I’m really damaged. It’s changed my life forever. I’m in a lot of pain and worked really hard to get strong so I can do my work. The great miracle is I was able to make this beautiful record. I really had no idea how it would turn out. I just jumped in and hoped I would be able to do it. This is all what’s happened to me since my life changed but obviously if I do something I must do it really well.

The record emphasises her unique place as a force of nature in the beating heart of modern music that started opening up after ‘’ ignited her muse and was recorded by nearly fifty years ago. At that time she had enjoyed her pop career with hits such

7 Broadbent Close, Highgate Village, , N6 5JW t 020 3213 0135  f 020 8348 7776 e [email protected]  www.republicmedia.net @republic_media as ‘Come And Stay With Me’ and ‘This Little Bird’, before becoming the crown princess of the UK counterculture before grasping her artistic reins with the landmark ‘Broken English’ in 1979.

Recorded at La Frette studio on the outskirts of Paris, ‘Negative Capability’ is inexorably overshadowed by grief at losing close friends from the ‘60s such as , Martin Stone and Cream album designer Martin Sharp. It’s produced by both Rob Ellis – the PJ Harvey producer who’s been Marianne’s collaborator for five years -and Warren Ellis from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Warren’s violin blesses songs such as ‘Misunderstanding’ and ‘Born To Live’ – her intensely moving eulogy to departed lifelong friend Anita - with the stark but lustrous autumnal beauty that makes the album.

The first single ‘The Gypsy Fairie Queen’ – inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ – was co-written with Nick Cave and features his vocals and piano playing. “It’s a little miracle,” says Marianne. “I asked Nick if he would put music to it and he wrote back saying, ‘I’m so busy.’ I said, ‘I understand, sorry to bother you.’ Then he just wrote back, ‘Thank you so much for understanding; here’s the song.’ It’s just gorgeous.”

Marianne has long been unsurpassed when it comes to reinterpreting other people’s songs, gifted in making them her own as she digs into the words to grip the composition’s heart then provides her own unique spin by injecting every syllable with clearly enunciated but gut level emotional response. Even if she wasn’t yet aware of it, this process started with ‘As Tears Go By’ as she plugged into its character looking back at her life. She would revisit the song with the wisdom of 23 years’ experience on 1987’s ‘Strange Weather’ and does again to stunning effect on ‘Negative Capability’, sung now with the resonance of age and experience. Her love of , who she hung out with on his 1965 UK tour, is continued with a riveting version of ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’. There’s also a remake of ‘Witches Song’ from ‘Broken English’ – now a psychedelic mantra.

In her long and storied career, ‘Negative Capability’ sees Marianne composing songs with her musical collaborators more than on any previous album. Mark Lanegan supplied the music for ‘They Come At Night’, inspired by the attacks in Paris and performed at the Bataclan while they

7 Broadbent Close, Highgate Village, London, N6 5JW t 020 3213 0135  f 020 8348 7776 e [email protected]  www.republicmedia.net @republic_media were “wiping the blood off the walls”. Ed Harcourt sculpted the desolately moving ‘No Moon In Paris’ that closes the album, with Marianne reflecting on her remarkable life.

“It’s been a real journey and I’ve learned a lot about myself and other people. It’s loneliness, but actually love is what it’s really about.”

i “Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” John Keats

Negative Capability tracklisting 1. Misunderstanding 2. The Gypsy Faerie Queen 3. As Tears go By 4. In My Own Particular Way 5. Born to Live 6. Witches Song 7. It's All Over Now, Baby blue 8. They Come At Night 9. Don't Go 10. No Moon In Paris 11. Loneliest Person

Cover & photos : © Yann Orhan

For further information contact Republic Media – [email protected] 020 3213 0135

7 Broadbent Close, Highgate Village, London, N6 5JW t 020 3213 0135  f 020 8348 7776 e [email protected]  www.republicmedia.net @republic_media