- Album: '(A Tribute To the Music And Mystery of Nico)'
- Label: 'Shipwrecked Industries/Easy ActionRecords/Bandcamp'
- Genre: 'Post-Rock'
- Release Date: '5.12.22.'
Our Rating:
This latest musical tribute to Nico joins the ranks of such tributes that I've been collecting since God's Gift included their song Nico on the Folie A Quatre cassette in 1984. This is at least the fourth tribute album to Nico, following James Young's peerless Soundtrack to his own book, Songs They Never Play On The Radio, through John Cale's Nico The Ballet and onto X-TG (Throbbing Gristle) re-recording the Desertshore album with a guest list that included Marc Almond, Anthony, Blixa Bargeld and Gaspar Noe. The less said about the film Nico 1988 the better.
Chris took Jennifer Otter Bickerdike's Biography of Nico "You Are Beautiful And Alone" as his starting point, partial inspiration for the original songs, chronicling various parts of Nico's career, myth and legend, but is thankfully far more enthralled and understanding of Nico's music than that book often is.
The album mixes Chris own composition with Nico's greatest hits set, to give this tribute the sort of multi-disciplinary approach needed, to get close to what fascinates many people about Nico, her life, mythology, the almost permanent Drama Of Exile.
The album was recorded in Chicago at Rock Noir as a duo with Chris Bruce (from Meshell Ndegeocello's band) who also acts as Producer. Chris Connelly in case you don't know has been involved as a member of among other bands Fini Tribe, Revolting Cocks, more recently working with Monica Queen.
The album opens with Ripcord, Ripcord with music somewhere between Drama Of Exile and Faction era Nico, the lyrics are all about Nico's youth in Berlin, the awful things she saw and happened to her, in her youth in Berlin, as he sings about her rape by an American Airman, whose damage never left her, as she embarked on a very peripatetic lifestyle, The guitar soloing throughout almost feels odd, as guitar solos rarely feature in Nico's music.
Via Margutta feels a bit like Bowie singing Brecht and Weill, as the dark tales from her modelling career is peppered with highlights with Fellini, others are interjected into the text, set against the elegiac music.
The Last Mile is the first of Nico's songs that Chris Covers, this was her debut single recorded with Jimmy Page, this is a nice acoustic strummed version, played like an early 60's folk pop song, that it really is, with the dark tinge to the lyrics suggesting you are nearing the end of your life, or The Last Mile.
Union Square West was the address of Warhol's Factory, essentially about Nico's arrival in New York's art scene, Nico's effect on Warhol and his superstars. This gives a good sketch of her early time in New York, even if Chris misses the essential element, also missed in Jennifer's book, not Nico's shyness, but those encapsulated in her hearing deficiencies, that helped to give her the otherworldly presence to transfix her collaborators and fans.
Andy, Incidentally is a letter from Lou Reed to Andy Warhol giving his concerns about Andy suggesting Nico as a singer for the Velvet Underground, how it worked out, with part of Nico's side of that argument, making her own suggestions as to how she saw herself creatively, as well as her driving force, alongside the discomfort of her time with The Velvets, no matter how legendary the music they made together is.
Femme Fatale is taken slowly and with pained vocals, as if it's by Jacques Brel rather than Lou Reed, the instrumentation works to bring out the pain and despair at the heart of this song about Warhol's doomed superstar Edie Sedgwick.
Eulogy To Lenny Bruce has lush strings with an arrangement similar to the one Nico sang at the Andy Warhol tribute show at The Fridge in Brixton, but with Chris vocals sounding similar to how Marc Almond sings her songs on X-TG's re-recording of Desertshore, obviously this song is from Chelsea Girls. It also takes from John Cale's original orchestration, understanding how Nico would have linked herself with Middle European classical music of the early to mid-20th century, this is a wonderful version of this song.
Oh Jim II expands John Cale's Minimal tune Jim from Nico The Ballet, into a tale about Nico's relationship with Iggy Pop during the recording of the first Stooges album that John Cale produced, how that meeting changed them both fundamentally, as the guitar keeps strumming us along the road to dissolution through narcotic enlightenment.
Frozen Warnings one of Nico's most bewitching songs, floats gently with strings, pump organ, Choral backing against the softly sung words of wisdom, as we cross the Frozen Borderline once more, wonderfully sensitively sung and played with an Arvo Part influenced carefully arpeggiated arrangement.
I Cannot Care feels like an opiated dream revealing various facets of the demons Nico carried with her, the gentle intoxication of her Parisienne adventures with Philippe Garrel and Lutz Ulbrich among others.
The Falconer begins as quite faithful to the original tribute to Andy Warhol, as Nico sketches her thoughts of the factory, cocooned in the drones, as florid piano glistens, dreamscapes open, visions of St Andy chanting in church on a Sunday morning, radio static floats off.
The Black Rooms Of Richelieu is about the infamous black apartment Nico shared with Phillippe Garrel where they made films, music and took inordinate amounts of Heroin and other drugs, as the swampy industrial art rock, adds to the paranoia, drug induced despair, or was it joy at doing exactly what you want to do with your life, rather than what others perceive you as being, this has the screamed cold turkey blues for change towards its climax.
Valley of The Kings was always a middle European classical song set in Egypt, as this version recognizes with lush strings and multi voiced Gregorian chant style vocals, droning organ echoes through a church, not as dramatically as Nico singing it at Reims Cathedral, this is more sepulchral ethereal beauty, as tribal drummers beat a fanfare as you glide through The Valley Of The Kings.
The connection to Reims is made clear on Reims, that explores that most infamous of Concerts with Tangerine Dream, after which the cathedral needed to be Re-Consecrated, this has echoes of the saints and sinners who inhabit that Medieval Cathedral through time, leading up to that one night. For anyone who has heard the bootlegs of that concert, or the officially released recordings, know how incredible Nico sounded as her organ and voice interacted with the building's acoustics, the audience bringing squalor into the magnificent surroundings.
A Slow Jones In New York is Nico going back to New York at the end of the 70's, start of the 80's, hanging out with Lou and Andy, this has the dry acerbic voice of Lou, as he hooks you up and pushes you out the door, this is dark harrowing distain.
80's Beat Boys as Nico has moved to Brixton, her steady touring years are approaching, the acoustic guitar so absent in Nico's music led alongside the tambourine, accompanying her on a different version of her musical journey than many of her fans of the time might recognize, rich with abstract detail, from various ways she's been betrayed during the Drama Of Exile, the two versions hostage to the drug deals, the constant exile.
Running Pure sounds like a list of regrets for what could have been, if she had not been so opiated, for a life led as if by design by Nico to allow her to float freely, creating when the need arises. Slowly elegiac a love song for the legend of the fallen angel.
Sixty Forty has a ringing acoustic guitar, strings sung almost as a love song, soulful sketch of New York Lower East Side, bringing the pop song to the fore.
Vegas has the synth sound very close to the 12" single version of Vegas, the swirling dread The Faction brewed up, as this typically obtuse road song unfurls.
Draw From It Like A Vampire is a tale of sitting in Nico's flat looking back on her career, with flashes of triumphs past. This almost feels like excerpts from sections of Richard Witts book on Nico, rather than Jennifer Otter Bickerdike's book.
Saeta is starkly intense as it needs to be, pinpoint percussion, hushed whispered voices, sampled radio announcements feel textural, as once again Nico crossed another line, another border you need to cross to enter Nico's world.
Tananore was the song that Nico opened with the first time I saw her live, it was a chilling opening to a show, this doesn't shy away from the existential angst in this mystical song, live she would sometimes sing this song acapella, it was chilling to behold, with the mantra like percussion this brings dread, foreboding darkness, inherent in the core of this song to the fore on a difficult song to cover.
Fa Massor Calor is about Nico's final days living in Ibiza once more riding her bike around the island, in better health than she's been in for years, this song details that final bike ride, falling off being taken to Hospitals that refused to treat her, dying from treatable injuries had the hospitals treated her in time.
The album closes with Hanging Gardens Of Semiramis one of the last songs Nico recorded with pulsing motoric beats, organ interjections, arabesque strings, synths stabbing though the tales of the Hanging Gardens bringing to a close a very impressive tribute to one of my Idols.
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