Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Perservere and you will benefit...., 26 April 2007
To all intents and purposes, this is five star package....beautifully packaged and remastered, with excellent (if slightly overblown)sleevenotes. If you are a fan of Nico already, you will not need to hesitate in awarding a final star...but this is not a package for the uninitiated. Nor is it perhaps the logical next step for fans of Nico's 1967 debut album, 'Chelsea Girl'...that album had a very different sound, being in many ways, a conventional late sixties folk-pop production (it's actually much better than that, but the striking material doesn't always benefit from the very conventional arrangements). Going from 'Chelsea Girl' to 'The Marble Index' is a bit like jumping from a warm bath into a freezing cold one! Therefore...I'd advise the newcomer to saturate him/herself in some like-minded works of the time: Skip Spence's 'Oar', for instance, the early works of the Soft Machine, maybe the wilder shores of the post-Nico Velvets. THEN, try '..Index', followed by 'Shore'.
Nico's voice is unique and powerful...it may not be a 'good' singing voice, but she certainly knew how to put her material over....and this is pretty amazing material, that owes far more to the Romantic poets and Nico's German heritage than it does to late sixties pop/rock. John Cale's very original settings may take some getting used to, but the ears adjust after a few plays. And, contrary to what some may tell you, this music isn't depressing at all: once you've got past Nico's somewhat ghostly delivery, you'll find this stuff as life-enhancing and renewing as anything else that came out of this wonderous era of music.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"a hole you fall into", 18 April 2007
having previously enjoyed nico's work with the velvet underground and her solo debut, chelsea girl, this reissue of two of her later albums (the marble index and desertshore) came as something of a surprise. it is considerably less accessible than either of the above; john cale's experimental arrangements combined with nico's gloomy vocals initially create quite an unsettling atmosphere. however, despite the unusal instrumentation (mostly harmonium and strings), this is far from being an unlistenable avant-garde experiment. beneath the dissonance lies true beauty, displaying nico's unique songwriting style. with each spin, the listener becomes aware of another beautiful snippet of melody, another haunting lyric or a subtle piece of instrumentation which previously went unnoticed. nico was taking vast amounts of heroin during the recording process; this is reflected in the dark and addictive nature of the music itself. it is relentlessly pessimistic, both musically and lyrically. the sound engineer is quoted in the liner notes that "the marble index isn't a record you listen to, it's a hole you fall into"; indeed, the music draws the listener in and consumes him entirely. this probably wouldn't be the record to put on at a dinner party; it is more suited for listening in solitude in a darkened room. it is a challenging record, no doubt. however, it is also one of the most original, beautiful and powerful collections i have heard in my life.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
two classic albums of glacial artrock from legendary German chanteuse, 24 Jun 2007
German chanteuse Christa Päffgen would be almost 70 if she were alive today, a shocking statistic considering how staggeringly modern much of this music sounds. Those raised on the vocal whirlwinds conjured by Polly Harvey or Bjork will find much to sustain them here, although the nature of Nico's allure is far more glacial and severe.
Her voice has the clarity and resonance of a great cathedral bell tolling underwater, but if Nico is effective when accompanied by only her own swaying harmonium, she is shattering when framed by John Cale's groundbreaking orchestrations. The Velvet Underground member had studied with Aaron Copland and his string arrangements on tracks like Evening of Light are way ahead of his time, prefiguring the primal chaos of contemporary composers like John Adams or James MacMillan but at the same time maintaining an almost medieval hymnlike severity as on the almost accapella My Only Child or the unearthly, tumbling Abschied.
This 2-CD set comprises extended versions of 1969's The Marble Index and 1970's Desertshore, both of which deserve to discover an audience they failed to find in their own time. Both CDs contain a wealth of unreleased tracks - both alternative takes of familiar songs and extra material, like the beautiful Réve Reveiller.
Nico's stage name is an anagram of icon, and that still makes perfect sense.
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