Nick Hudson - Catherine In The Curate's Garden
Brighton experimental artist Nick Hudson presents 'Catherine in the Curate's Garden', the latest audio-visual offering from his album 'Kanda Teenage Honey', an expansive 16-track collection recorded in a former Soviet movie studio in Georgia in the build-up to the country's current unrest, an explosive combination of circumstances that recently earned him coverage in Billboard.
"Originally, 'Catherine In The Curate's Garden' was a folk song, written eight years ago when I was living in an industrial unit on the south coast of England. It never sat comfortably in those rustic garments and while writing 'Kanda Teenage Honey' it made itself known as a simmering, swampy, gothic art rock piece. I asked my friend Stuart Dahlquist of Asva/Sunn O))) and Burning Witch to grace it with his inimitable bass tone and we subjected the drums to some infernal alchemy," says Nick Hudson.
"The lyrics narrate the de-martyring of two saints - Sebastiane and Catherine, who shame and dispose of the curate who has judged and condemned them, before conjoining in sexual and romantic ecstasy in a throng of lupine cheerleaders. Call it biblical speculative fiction if you will, with a queered-up slant. This is echoed in the video wherein we recreated a sequence from Carl Dreyer's vanguard silent film 'The Passion Of Joan Of Arc' (1928) - I actually storyboarded this sequence and we shot it frame for frame in a junkyard in Tbilisi, with my Russian gangster rapper friend Tex2ra (yes, a male) as Joan and a host of Pasolinian non-actors cast for their compelling visages and on-screen energies."
This follows Hudson's most recent videos for 'Unspent Youth' and 'Sky Burial While Alive', featuring a prologue text on dictators, spoken by Alfreda Benge - collaborator and wife of legendary British composer Robert Wyatt. The video was filmed at the Bologna villa used in the Pasolini's film 'Salo' (itself a notorious and damning critique of fascism) and in Tbilisi with a cast of international performers.
Having earlier previewed the singles 'For My Silence' and 'Khevsureti', this album was born of geographical explorations amidst musical territory that is hardly touched on. Mixed by and featuring Toby Driver of Kayo Dot, this album involves such luminaries as Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite, Stuart Dahlquist (Asva, Burning Witch, Sunn O))), Lizzy Carey (Bat For Lashes), Robert Wyatt collaborator Alfreda Benge, Christopher Nell (legendary German performer and collaborator of US theatre visionary Robert Wilson), and soprano prodigy Poppy Efemey.
Recorded with Ilya Lukashev at Leno Studio and Sano Studio in Tbilisi, this album was mastered to analogue tape by Paul Pascoe (Barry Adamson, Beat Hotel, Sleaford Mods) at Church Road Studios in Hove, Hudson collaborates with some incredible Georgian musicians and his friend Seva, a Russian dissident who fled the FSB, having worked for Navalny. Hudson explains, "He contributes a poem narrating his thoughts on exile, through which I've layered field recordings of the recent Tbilisi and Paris protests, where many of us got tear-gassed."
In 2021, Hudson released his 'Font Of Human Fractures' album and the 'K69996ROMA:EP', following his band The Academy of Sun's opus album 'The Quiet Earth' in 2020. He has collaborated with such legends as Wayne Hussey (The Mission), Matthew Seligman (David Bowie, Tori Amos, Morrissey), Massive Attack's Shara Nelson, plus David Tibet (Current 93) and queercore icon GB Jones. His vast output also encompasses painting, film and a novel.
'Kanda Teenage Honey' is out now everywhere digitally, including Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. Also available as a 4-panel CD digipak with an 8-page full colour booklet, it features artwork by Nick Hudson and Berdia Arabuli and photography by Carl Solomon, Jack Hubbell Rosene and Kenneth Anger.
Hudson also recently published his book 'The Land Exists So The Seas Don't Argue', showcasing a decade of lyrical output iplus ephemera with a foreword by renowned Scottish author Chris Kelso.
