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Rating:
1968 Year of Our Lord.
The beautiful Christa Pfaffgen, now known to everyone as Nico, once her brief adventure in the uncomfortable shoes of the Velvet Underground was over, and after releasing an impersonal album written by multiple hands like "Chelsea Girl", disappeared for some time into the folds of America's sprawling cities, treading little-beaten paths with her younger mentors and occasional lovers such as Jim Morrison and the good Iggy Pop... wild companies that broaden her perspective and make her personal, sharp, finally herself.
When she resurfaces to record an album, she calls on the brilliant John Cale, fresh off being fired by that lovely Lou Reed after that masterpiece "White Light/White Heat" to arrange music that SHE has written, alone, finally... and it is from here (for me) that Nico makes her TRUE debut... it seems that the music she has participated in until now never existed, despite the already published songs, just like her voice, always peculiar, now powerful, confident, passionate yet icy, cold, drugged.
Even the splendid cover photo shows a different person, although her eyes are not extinguished, they reveal an abyss that is as exciting as it is dangerous to venture into.
An album with daring arrangements, where the typical song form is abandoned in favor of nursery rhymes with a shamanic flavor and timeless, in a flow of sounds, suggestions, and emotional jolts dictated by dark words, among a Nico transformed into a black Virago with a harmonium to support her and Cale all around conspiring magic with every classical instrument and not at his disposal, granting the platter a.
From the leaden "Prelude" to the mournful chamber music of "No One Is There", Nico sings of sensations bigger than herself, enigmas possibly undecipherable even to herself, in a tragic crescendo of oppressive feelings (not even the song dedicated to little son Ari is spared from that melancholic and almost esoteric mood), the album undergoes an unsurpassable climax in music up to then and since then, with "Evening Of Light", a description of the end of time in which Nico and Cale rise in intensity to the unthinkable, so much so that it scares the listener, who passively witnesses the death of everything in a macabre dance masterfully arranged.
An indicative finale of the emotional and mental state in which this new Nico will immerse herself until the end of her life.
An album not recommended for the faint-hearted, the emotion unleashed in these grooves can poison you and make you dependent on the darkness surrounding it.
One of the best albums perhaps ever recorded.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
04 Ari's Song (03:20)
Sail away, sail away my little boy
Let the wind fill your heart with light and joy
Sail away my little boy
Let the rain wash away your cloudy days
Sail away into a dream
Let the wind send you a fantasy
Of the ancient silver sea
Now you see that only dreams
Can send you where you want to be
Now you find those faces
Are not holding places
Where you thought they'd be
And later as you go again
You will agree
That it was all a dream
Sail away, sail away my little boy
Let the wind fill your heart with light and joy
Sail away my little boy
05 Facing the Wind (04:52)
It's holding me against my will
And doesn't leave me still
Amazons are riding out
To find a meaning for
The name, my name
In the rain
My spinning on my Name
In the rain, in the rain
When did it begin ?
When did it begin ?
Why am I not facing the wind ?
My mother and my brother
Are facing the wind.
Why are they facing the wind ?
Why are they facing the wind ?
There's nothing more to sing about
Not now or when they carry me away
In the rain
My spinning on my name in the rain
My spinning on my name in the rain
In the rain.
When did it begin ?
When did it begin ?
Why are they facing the wind ?
07 Frozen Warnings (04:00)
Friar hermit stumbles over
The cloudy borderline
Frozen warnings close to mine
Close to the frozen borderline
Frozen warnings close to mine
Close to the frozen borderline
Into numberless reflections
Rises a smile from your eyes into mine
Frozen warnings close to mine
Close to the frozen borderline
Frozen warnings close to mine
Close to the frozen borderline
Over railroad station tracks
Faintly flickers a modest cry
From without a thousand cycles
A thousand cycles to come
A thousand times to win
A thousand ways to run the world
In a similar reply
Friar hermit stumbles over
The cloudy borderline
Frozen warnings close to mine
Close to the frozen borderline
Frozen warnings close to mine
Close to the frozen borderline
Close to the frozen borderline
Close to the frozen borderline
Close to the frozen borderline
08 Evening of Light (05:33)
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
A true story wants to be mine
A true story wants to be mine
The story is telling a true lie
The story is telling a true lie
Mandolins are ringing to his viol singing
Mandolins are ringing to his viol singing
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
Dungeon's sinking to a slumber to the end of time
Dungeon's sinking to a slumber to the end of time
Petrel sings the domebells pound into the unended end of time
Petrel sings the domebells pound into the unended end of time
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
In the morning of my winter
When my eyes are still asleep
In the morning of my winter
When my eyes are still asleep
A dragonfly laying in a coat of snow
I'll send to kiss your heart for me
A dragonfly laying in a coat of snow
I'll send to kiss your heart for me
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
The children are jumping in the evening of light
The children are jumping in the evening of light
A thousand sins are heavy in the evening of light
A thousand sins are heavy in the evening of light
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
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Other reviews
By dissipatio_hg
The music accompanying Nico’s pure voice is like the wind—an inconstant wind, that torments and unsettles.
The poetic lyrics, made of words that freeze the soul, recall some of Bruegel’s paintings.
By Joe Vanny 78
The disoriented voice, used itself as an independent instrument, seems to be in the grip of a hallucination.
Recommended for nighttime listening, for particularly dark and restless souls.
By paolofreddie
Christa’s lyrics and music convey anguish, profound sadness, annihilate the listener with their spontaneity, with their lack of inhibition.
With 'Marble Index,' Nico introduces for the first time a genre that will have a wide echo in the '80s and '90s, the gothic genre.
