Christa Päffgen (known as Nico) was a German singer, model and actress who sang with The Velvet Underground and released influential solo albums including Chelsea Girl (1966), The Marble Index (1968) and Desertshore (1970). She collaborated frequently with John Cale and developed a stark, harmonium‑based sound admired by critics and later musicians.

Born Christa Päffgen (16 October 1938) in Cologne, Germany; associated with Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground (appeared on the 1967 Velvet Underground & Nico album); frequent collaborator with John Cale; had a son, Ari (father: Alain Delon); died 18 July 1988 in Ibiza after a bicycle accident.

Reviews on DeBaser celebrate Nico as an idiosyncratic, avant‑garde artist whose harmonium‑based work (notably The Marble Index and Desertshore) influenced gothic and dark‑wave aesthetics. Contributors praise her bleak, timeless voice and the collaborations with John Cale. Chelsea Girl is noted as an early, more conventional debut; later albums are described as singular and uncompromising.

For:Listeners of experimental, avant‑garde, dark folk/gothic music and Velvet Underground fans.

 Nico was a tainted spirit, a hell of a character (to be polite), a ball and chain for those who frequented and endured her in her final years, and at the same time a very fragile creature and an alien, authentic, and unheard composer, despite all the expressive limitations she imposed on herself, from the harmonium to the funereal frame of the songs.

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 The End, from '74, concludes the ideal trilogy started with 'The Marble Index.' It isn’t Nico’s artistic pinnacle, but it succeeds in the difficult task of delving deeper into the discourse begun with the two illustrious predecessors and, in particular, with the absolute masterpiece 'Desertshore.'

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 A divine and human voice (all too human).

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