Bauhaus return with Drink The New Wine – their first new music in 14 years

Iconic post-punk goth pioneers Bauhaus have returned with their first new song in more than a decade.

The Northampton quartet released Drink The New Wine yesterday, a song inspired by the surrealist movement using the ‘exquisite corpse’ method to compose the song.

In a statement posted on the band’s official online platforms, Bauhaus said: Drink The New Wine was recorded last year during lockdown with the four members sharing audio files.

“The track employs the Surrealists' 'Exquisite Corpse' device whereby each artist adds to the piece without seeing what the others have done.

“Bauhaus have used this technique in the past to great effect.

“The title refers to the very first Cadavre exquis' drawing rendered by André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Prévert and Yves Tanguy which included words which when strung together made up the sentence, 'Le cadavre exquis boiara le vin nouveau' ('The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine’).”

For the recording, the four musicians each had one minute and eight tracks at their disposal plus a shared 60 seconds plus four tracks for a composite at the end. This was all done without hearing what the others had laid down.