Much ink has been spilled on the legendary Marianne Faithfull’s remarkably long career; in fact, this year marks Faithfull’s 50th year as a recording artist  and the forthcoming release of her 20th full-length Give My Love to London in November. Featuring collaborations with Nick Cave, Roger Waters, Steve Earle, Ed Harcourt, members of Nick Cave’s band, the Bad Seeds and members of Portishead. 

The first single “Late Victorian Holocaust” is a song that Nick Cave penned specifically for Marianne Faithfull, and the song is a hauntingly spectral and sparse composition, which begins with Faithfull’s husky croon, piano, slowly swirling electronics before the addition of violin about 2 minutes in. Thanks to Faithfull’s vocals, the lyrics evoke a sense of lingering regret, a blinking and dulled sense of horror with a novelist’s uncanny attention to psychological detail. And if you put all of that together, you have a song that leaves an uncomfortably lingering gallows-like presence.