•
Rating:
The cover shows a woman now mature, far from the smiling Nico from "La Dolce Vita" with a helmet on her head and a candelabrum in her hand, distant from Andy Warhol's Factory, from the Velvet Underground. With a serious, thin face. A chanteuse, a priestess of music. Immersed in a world that will reveal itself to us gradually as we dive track by track into her heart.
"The Marble Index" is Nico's return to the Europe of her childhood. Even if the melodies are not folk from the Mittel-European tradition, something beyond physical perceptions takes us exactly to those hills far from the sea, full of immense and unfathomable forests. Among the medieval castles of various princes, to their courts, wrapped in the melodic stories of minstrels.
This album is of a genre that is impossible to define. It is so avant-garde, that even now it is beyond every traditional and non-traditional structure. It is an absolute innovation, born from the fusion of two very close sensibilities: Nico and Cale. And the latter certainly played a part in the end result of the entire work.
The constant of every single song on "The Marble Index" is that the music accompanying Nico's pure voice is like the wind. An inconstant wind, that torments and unsettles. The beautiful effect is achieved thanks to Cale's oscillating strings and Nico's Indian harmonium, then mixed in a particular way. The poetic lyrics, made of words that freeze the soul, the music like a distant echo, recall some of Bruegel's paintings. The winter day that doesn't even have time to be born and is already preparing to die, in pale red and yellow. Eternal melancholy of landscapes of leafless trees, spotting the horizon with black, lifeless patches. It is in this setting that Nico chants her sparse and beautiful laments, in complete solitude, in the fairytale and legendary atmospheres, centuries away from our world.
The first version lacked "Roses In The Snow" and "Nibelungen", the latter performed by Nico without any accompaniment. "Ari's Song" is dedicated to the son born from the liaison with Alain Delon.
"The Marble Index" is somewhat a prelude to Nico's masterpiece: "Desertshore", with which she will reach the apotheosis of her musical career.
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
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
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 Alvo23
Nico makes her TRUE debut... it seems that the music she has participated in until now never existed.
The emotion unleashed in these grooves can poison you and make you dependent on the darkness surrounding it.
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.
