Marianne Faithfull

Negative Capability

Sixties muse delivers her masterpiece. Racked with pain from surgical procedures, a broken hip, arthritis; bereft from the loss of close friends; haunted by the twin spectres of mortality and loneliness; Marianne Faithfull has produced an extraordinary album of raw unflinching honesty and staggering emotive power.

Boasting more original material than usual, Negative Capability finds Faithfull at her best, delivering a remarkable eulogy to her friend Anita Pallenberg (Born To Live), inspired by the Paris attacks to compose They Come At Night with Mark Lanegan and returning at 71 to As Tears Go By, the Jagger/Richards composition that introduced her to the world as an angelic convent girl of 17. A rich, moving, experiencesteeped rendition of equal power to Johnny Cash’s Hurt or Joni Mitchell’s 2000 reprise of Both Sides Now. Nick Cave’s on hand to add vocal power to The Gypsy Fairie Queen, and the production by Rob Ellis and Warren Ellis captures every last nuance of the prevailing mood perfectly, while Faithfull herself is invariably the irresistibly captivating grande dame at centre stage.

There won’t be a better record released this month, and very few this year. This is one for the ages.