Nina Simone's GumIn July 1999, Nina Simone gave a rare performance as part of Nick Cave's Meltdown Festival. After the show, in a state of awe, Warren Ellis crept onto the stage, took her piece of chewed gum from the piano, wrapped it in her stage towel and put it in a Tower Records bag. The gum remained with him for twenty years; a sacred totem, his creative muse, growing in significance with every passing year. In 2019, Cave his collaborator and great friend asked

and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire

they make a new promise

It began for our narrator 40 years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it

telling the time

the risks to us ebb and flow

she dances

strange land

his MI5 handler

an expedition of extraordinary scale and ambition set off from Western Europe on a mass pilgrimage to Jerusalem

They are shape-shifters

Heroes and villains and lots more

Up until that point