Mick Harvey
Motion Picture Music '94-'05

Your choice. But as far as I'm concerned, the Bad Seeds without Mick Harvey are gone for good.

The red from Australia (not to be confused with the also known "Red of Detroit") left the Bad Seeds last January after being Nick Cave's shadow for over thirty years. He was already by his side during the times of Boys Next Door and Birthday Party. Many may turn up their noses, but the Bad Seeds are (were) also and especially his creation.

However, to reduce Mick Harvey's entire career to his long and fruitful collaboration with Nick Cave would be unfair. Multifunctional instrumentalist, producer, and excellent composer and writer of love songs, death, and other nonsense (quote), over the years Mick has carried forward an infinity of collaborations and side projects.
In the company of various Rowland S. Howard, Epic Soundtracks, and Alexander Hacke, he joined the Crime and the City Solution (probably one of the best Australian realities of all time) of his friend Simon Bonney. Anita Lane, Hugo Race, John Parish, and P.J. Harvey (in Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea) are just some of the names he encountered over the years.

In the nineties, Intoxicated Man and Pink Elephants were released, two albums of Serge Gainsbourg songs translated into English from French. Between 2005 and 2008, Mick Harvey released four new works. The beautiful One Man's Treasure and Two of Diamonds. A live recorded at Bush Hall in London (Three Sisters).

The fourth album is indeed this "Motion Picture Music '94-'05." An album that, as the title suggests, is a collection of tracks (twenty-seven) composed by our hero for the cinema. Australian and European. 

The films in question are, in truth, little known and, at least on Italian soil, of complex availability. The feature films "Rosehill" (by Mari Cantu) and "Chopper" (by Andrew Dominik). "Sparrow" and "Rien Ne Vas Plus" are two little-known short films. "Lighting Fires" is a documentary about the Australian painter Tim Storrier. "The Man Who Made History" is a tribute to Captain Frank Hurley, photographer, director, and explorer of the early last century.

Mick Harvey had already dealt with the big screen - see among others the soundtrack of "Ghosts... of the Civil Dead" by John Hillcoat - and in this case, he does it all alone. He writes the pieces and plays them. The best tracks of this anthology are those part of the soundtrack of "Go For Gold" by Lucian Segura. Here Warren Ellis comes to the rescue, and the results are truly astonishing. In "The Polish Market" and "The Farewell Song" (sung by Nick Cave), Ellis's violin is wild and creates a huge racket. Just like the ballads of the Romanians Taraf de Haïdouks, whom Harvey freely draws inspiration from this time.
Elsewhere, Mick saves himself with his usual class. Particularly successful are the three tracks that are part of the Lighting Fires soundtrack. Above all, the beautiful piano theme.

Although the content of the collection is inevitably very heterogeneous, there are no lapses in style in "Motion Picture Music '94-'05". But, alright, nothing transcendent.