Barry Adamson shares ‘Jane’s Day Out in Court’
Barry Adamson (Photo by Fifty Foot Woman Ltd)
English composer and former Magazine / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds bassist Barry Adamson has released the new digital single “Jane’s Day Out in Court“, taken from his forthcoming 22-track soundtrack album “SCALA!!!”. The album is due on 16 January 2026 via Mute on limited edition “banned blood” coloured vinyl, CD in eco card pack, and digital formats.
“Jane’s Day Out in Court” is out now as a three-track digital release on Mute, bundled with “Babs Johnson Is Divine” and “Scala Posters (Mondo Bongo)”.
The track draws on a 1993 legal case that marked a turning point in the history of London’s Scala cinema. Former Scala programmer and later co-director of the documentary, Jane Giles, was prosecuted after an unlicensed screening of Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”, a film withdrawn from UK distribution by the director. While the court case did not formally close the cinema, it unfolded in the same year that the venue shut its doors.
Barry Adamson’s “SCALA!!!” score accompanies the 2023 documentary “SCALA!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World’s Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-Up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits”, directed by Jane Giles and Ali Catterall and based on Giles’ 2018 book “Scala Cinema 1978–1993”. The film traces the history of the repertory cinema and venue near London’s King’s Cross from the 1970s through its closure in 1993, with interviews from figures including John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Mark Moore and Barry Adamson himself.
On “SCALA!!!”, Barry Adamson returns to his long-running role as a film composer, shaping a Scala cinema documentary score that references posters, all-nighters, the venue’s cats and its King’s Cross surroundings. Across 22 cues, titles such as “Scala Posters (Mondo Bongo)”, “Acid Celluloid”, “Scala Cats”, “Back To The Cats”, “King’s Cross Skyline” and closing piece “SCALA!!! (End Title)” frame “Jane’s Day Out in Court” as a late-album sequence tied directly to the 1993 court case.
About Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson was born on 11 June 1958 in Moss Side, Manchester, England. He first became known in the late 1970s as bassist for post-punk group Magazine, appearing on their studio albums between 1978 and 1981. During this period and shortly afterwards he also worked with projects such as Buzzcocks, Visage and The Birthday Party, before joining Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds as a founding member in the mid-1980s, with whom he recorded and toured for several years and briefly rejoined for the 2013 album “Push the Sky Away”.
Adamson launched his solo career with “Moss Side Story” in 1989 on Mute, a conceptual album framed as a soundtrack to an “imaginary film”. This was followed by “Soul Murder” in 1992, which received a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and “Oedipus Schmoedipus” in 1996, alongside later albums including “As Above So Below” (1998), “The King of Nothing Hill” (2002), “Stranger on the Sofa” (2006), “Back to the Cat” (2008), “I Will Set You Free” (2012) and “Know Where to Run” (2016). In 2018 he released the compilation “Memento Mori”, presenting material spanning four decades, and in 2024 he issued his tenth studio album “Cut To Black”.
His film and television work includes collaborations with directors Derek Jarman (“The Last of England”), David Lynch (“Lost Highway”), Oliver Stone (“Natural Born Killers”) and Danny Boyle (“The Beach”), cementing his position as a composer for cinema and television in addition to his solo catalogue.
In 2021 Adamson published the first part of his memoir, “Up Above the City, Down Beneath the Stars”, through Omnibus Press, reflecting on his years with Magazine, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and his solo work. His catalogue has since been the subject of an ongoing reissue campaign on Mute, including new vinyl editions of “Oedipus Schmoedipus”, “Stranger on the Sofa”, “Back to the Cat”, “Steal Away”, “I Will Set You Free” and “Know Where To Run”.
Alongside recording and touring, Adamson has worked in education and arts contexts, including a role at Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Digital Arts, while continuing to release material via Mute and his own imprint.
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