Brighton, UK-based experimental artist Nick Hudson has revealed “Catherine in the Curate’s Garden“, the latest audio-visual single from his album Kanda Teenage Honey, a 16-track collection recorded in a former Soviet movie studio in the country of Georgia.
Hudson explains about the single and its video:
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.
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 album was born of geographical explorations. Mixed by and featuring Toby Driver of Kayo Dot, it also features Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite, Stuart Dahlquist (Asva, Burning Witch, Sunn O))), Lizzy Carey (Bat For Lashes), Robert Wyatt collaborator Alfreda Benge, Christopher Nell (German performer and collaborator of Robert Wilson’s), and 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 also recently published his book The Land Exists So The Seas Don’t Argue, showcasing a decade of lyrical output, plus ephemera, with a foreword by Scottish author Chris Kelso.
