Grinderman 2 single, Heathen Child, out Aug 30th

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‘Heathen Child’ is Grinderman’s new single.

Out 30th August 2010

Heathen Child, the new single from the band Grinderman, will be released on 30th August. The premiere offering from their new studio album Grinderman 2, Heathen Child will be released through Mute with the complete album following on 13th September. (14th September USA)

Listen to ‘Heathen Child’ by Grinderman

Update, July 26 (Pitchfork): It’s the first single from the second album from Nick Cave’s balls-out Grinderman project. It’s swampy and bluesy and you may feel like you need a wash after listening to it. The “Heathen Child” single is out on limited edition 12″ colored vinyl September 6 and features another version of the song– dubbed “Super Heathen Child”– with an ear-blasting guitar solo from the one and only Robert Fripp (David Bowie, King Crimson). LINK

Press Release: The song Heathen Child cuts a deep seductively heavy groove interjected with dazzling squalls of saw-tooth distortion. It abounds in lyrical imagery at turns lascivious, paranoid, philosophic, absurd and flat out abusive. The video, vividly directed by long-time collaborator John Hillcoat, brings the ominous sensuality and surreal malevolence of the lyrics to life; but it also demonstrates clear evidence of the fun and imagination Grinderman have working together. (LINK)

Grinderman will tour the UK and Europe in September/October 2010. For a full list of dates and venues please visit myspace.com/grinderman/

Trailers for the new Grinderman album, directed by John Hillcoat.
Video Teaser 1

Video Teaser 2

Video Teaser 3

Video Teaser 4 (added 16 July)

Video Teaser 5

Video Teaser 6

Tx to MuteChannel

15 thoughts on “Grinderman 2 single, Heathen Child, out Aug 30th”

  1. Jamie said: …the color matters because there’s a history of dark-skinned people being portrayed as wild and godless. and
    I mean you’re already doing the wicked woman thing, did you need to throw in the wicked black woman thing too?

    Good points. I’m assuming the art direction for this video is a collaboration between Nick and John Hillcoat? I look forward to hearing about its conception. However, judging by their explanations for the ‘Bring it On’ video as an homage to American rap music videos, I doubt they will offer anything more substantive.

    Apparently, Grinderman wish to preserve their image as politically incorrect and inappropriately vulgar white men. This summer has been hellish so the timing is perfect. Pitchfork writes: “It’s the first single from the second album from Nick Cave’s balls-out Grinderman project. It’s swampy and bluesy and you may feel like you need a wash after listening to it.” HERE

    Sounds accurate. Consume with appropriate caution, I guess. 😉

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  4. Why’s she gotta be black? I guess it’s some sort of we’ll use the obvious stereotype because racism is SO LAST CENTURY thing, but bleh. (Note, this is the sort of “using a racist image does not make the user/s racist, but ‘insensitive’ might be a good word for it.)

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      • You know, I was about to write a response here but I have the distinct feeling people are going to flip their shit that I dare write critically about someone whose work I’ve been consuming (and continue to consume) for the last decade. Every time I say anything critical it’s like “Well why do you even post here if you don’t support every single thing that Nick Cave ever does?” It’s ridiculous. Until I’m assured of a more measured response I’m not going to bother.

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        • Jamie –
          RE: why do you even post here if you don’t support every single thing that Nick Cave ever does?

          Oh, please. No one said anything of the kind to you. We’ve hosted more than our fair share of Cave critical threads. At the end of the day, most people stop by for a Nick Fix. It’s not complicated. What do you want to be assured of? When you post a comment and someone asks you to explain yourself further you may not get a ‘measured’ response. It’s the nature of posting in public forums.

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          • I thought so too. I’ve always thought this site is full of a nice mix of people – those who love everything Nick does, those who DON’T love everything Nick does, those who are rather obsessed, those who are more casual fans, etc. As such, there have been plenty of interesting debates on here in between all the goodies 🙂

            It’s just that when somebody has something “critical” to say, I’m interested in hearing their reasons, rather than it being assumed I’ll blindly flip my shit over something.

            Also if someone’s handing out assurances in life, I want some! 😀

      • Because the last time I made a criticism like this in a Nick Cave forum I got a lot of “Why do you even post here?”s. Sorry, it’s frustrating.

        Anyway, the color matters because there’s a history of dark-skinned people being portrayed as wild and godless. As I said in the original post, it seems to be an intentional use of an old racist trope–and the use of such things by people who (I would assume) know better is an insinuation that, as a culture, “we” are “beyond” things like that being offensive.

        I guess I just feel as though things like this, while present in Nick Cave’s work for ages, aren’t done very artfully anymore. The fiction it draws on isn’t as rich as, say, Saint Huck.

        So yes, her color matters because it’s highly, highly unlikely that they just randomly decided to use a black lady.

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        • Sorry, I forgot to note. . .as I insinuated in my original post, my sentiment isn’t “this deeply offends me and clearly Nick Cave and the rest of the band are filthy, filthy racists”. It’s more of an irritated toss of the eyes. I mean you’re already doing the wicked woman thing, did you need to throw in the wicked black woman thing too?

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