[.ca] Marble Index

Chronique amazon.fr:
Encore plus habité que Chelsea Girl dont le répertoire était exclusivement composé de reprises, The Marble Index est un des sommets de la carrière de Nico chanteuse. La voix, monocorde, parfaitement en place sur des arrangements signés par John Cale dont l'aspect dépouillé évoque des images d'étendues désertiques, psalmodie de véritables incantations. Après avoir rencontré Bob Dylan à New York, Nico est l'amie de Jim Morrison qui semble lui ouvrir là les portes de la perception sous l'influence du LSD. Constamment au bord du gouffre, chacune des perles baroques interprétées (auxquelles il faut ajouter "Roses In The Snow" et "Nibelungen" par rapport au LP original) doit beaucoup aux violons (et à l'alto) orchestrés par Cale (qui a eu tout loisir d'en explorer les méandres en compagnie des compositeurs contemporains Tony Conrad et La Monte Young au sein de Dream Syndicate) ainsi qu'à l'harmonium qui sert d'unique accompagnement au sublime "Ari's Song" dédié à son fils Ari Bologne qu'elle a eue d'Alain Delon. Vertigineux donc. --Philippe Robert

From Amazon.co.uk:
The former Velvet Underground chanteuse's second solo album, The Marble Index, remains capable, decades after its gestation, of reducing the most vibrant of social gatherings to a morbid silence within three tracks. The Marble Index never got played on the radio, except by disc jockeys who were tired of their work and couldn't be bothered writing the letter of resignation. Which is to say that it's hard work. Her debut solo effort, Chelsea Girl, released a couple of years earlier, had contained songs written by Jackson Browne and Lou Reed, and some occasional semblance of a tune had therefore occasionally infested Nico's trademark stentorian drone. She wrote The Marble Index herself, and while her disdain for melody and John Cale's discordant but sympathetic arrangements occasionally achieve a certain fluency, getting from one end of The Marble Index to the other remains a challenge that deters all but the boldest: the Paris-Dakar rally of pop albums. --Andrew Mueller

wierdness:
Describing this music is very difficult, but I'll try. Nico sings, and on all tracks but the last one done a cappella, plays an instrument called the harmonium, which apparantly is a cross between a theramin (the wierd instrument in "Good Vibrations" and amny spooky effects in movies) and an accordian. Her voice is thick, expressive yet monotone, and the European accents show through. I'm not sure of the standards for the harmonium, but her playing seems to these untrained ears to be very proficient. John Cale, her old Velvet Underground cohort, adds some great noises here and there. The music is very human, not really rock but unbelievably powerful, and VERY unique. Stories of hopelessness, love, dead insects...this is a one of a kind. mandatory purchase.

music out of time:
I've heard her VU songs for years, saw Nico Icon, but it was only last month I decided to get The Marble Index. My feeling: it sounds strange at first and probably will remain offputting to many people, but after a few listens it reveals itself to be a great and classic album. It is music that sounds out of time, medieval, gothic, sung in Nico's one-of-a-kind deep melancholy voice, with John Cale's spare, sympathetic backgrounds. Nico will always be a fringe character in rock and roll history, weird, fascinating, unknowable, a heroin-addicted beauty who ravaged her looks and health, and this album shows she should be taken seriously as an artist. "Midnight winds are landing at the end of time"...yes, they were for her.

Giving it up for the Producer, Frazier Mohawk:
We didnt see his name once in the reviews (nor at amg), some confusing Mr Cale's contributions with the Producer's...unless the credit which appears is somehow 'undeserved'? Why deny The Marble Index's unique atmospheres their at least 1/3 overseer-author-sculptor? Mohawk's work tends to hold up magically over the decades, and we'll bet, centuries! (Hear also: RUNNING JUMPING STANDING STILL, PRIMORDIAL LOVERS, THE MORAY EELS EAT THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS)

Exploding Gothic Inevitable:
There was a time that I thought Lester Bangs and I were the only two people in the world who thought this album was a masterpiece. It's heartening to see so many positive postings for it here on Amazon.com. Nico will never be a mainstream taste, but she has begun to get her due from critics and at least pockets of the public at large. Too bad she's not around to see it. Well, she did enjoy some acclaim from the punk audience of the late 70s, and that did lead to a kind of renaissance that--if it didn't make her rich--at least supported her habit. How odd that the legendary recluse of the 60s wound up touring like crazy in the 80s. Who'd have guessed that the number of "live" recordings, most released posthumously, would by far exceed her studio output. That was later, though. In '69, Nico, in collaboration with fellow Velvet outcast, John Cale, was going off in a direction that few could have anticipated. THE MARBLE INDEX was not Andy's version of Nico, not Lou's, and certainly not Jackson Browne's. And it wasn't really John Cale's either. Nico and Cale collaborate beautifully, and his arrangements are part of what makes this album so masterful. But those who are dismissive of Nico's actual contribution do not understand the importance of the songs themselves, all penned by Nico, and how their essence lies in her unique vocals and her harmonium accompaniment. The lyrics--which many find impenetrable--are always evocative, often brilliant--despite the fact that English was not her first language, or perhaps BECAUSE of it. THE MARBLE INDEX is Nico's masterpiece because it's a true song cycle and works beautifully as such. DESERTSHORE is like a series of vignettes, all lovely in their way, but all discrete Lieder unto themselves. With INDEX, "Julius Caesar" flows into "Frozen Warnings," which in turn is followed--perfectly, inevitably--by the closer "Evening of Light." So how welcome are the additional tracks on an album that was sequenced so perfectly, beginning with (lawns of) dawn and ending with "evening" (of light)? Very welcome indeed, in the sense that "Roses In the Snow" and "Nibelungen" are beauties-- hardly the typical "bonus track" throwaways one might expect on a CD-rerelease of a classic LP. And didn't THE MARBLE INDEX always seem a little short anyway, clocking in at just over 30 minutes? Well, what we have now is a different record. The added tracks seem to belong, and end the album on a decidedly different, more somber, less visionary note. So play it both ways...sometimes end it with "Evening of Light," the way, Nico and Cale originally intended...and sometimes with the appended "Roses In the Snow" and the a cappella "Nibelungen." Either way, THE MARBLE INDEX is a haunting experience, one you won't soon forget. (One minor caveat. Unless it's because my CD player isn't up to snuff, I suspect that this recording might benefit from remastering. I get the impression that--just as many classical music buffs have said about some of their favorite re-releases on CD--that it lacks the "depth" and richness of the original vinyl. Still a must-have for Goths (oth Ostro and Visi) as well as lovers of experimental music in general.

Beauty and Terror:
This is an album that i can listen to and be just as blown away every time. This is an album with timeless sound, confined to no era or technique of recording...an album at once ancient and modern...stirring in its beauty, its poignancy, and its horror. This album is the definition of revolutionary. When Nico first picked up her harmonium, magic was bound to happen, especially as, with this album, she braved all popular opinion and created something purely from her own talents, with of course, the sonic aid of the brilliant John Cale to back up her vision. To start this album is to start a dream experience, from the prelude on and to the bonus tracks, amazing, murky, and impressionistic lyrics somehow manage to ignite a clarity in the subconcious. This is, as said, a brave album in any age. Though all the songs are stirring, beauteous, and memorable, such songs as "No One Is There", "Frozen Warnings", and "Evening of Light" are among its most powerfully defining moments. But the song "Evening Of Light", whcih was the original closer of the album, is most likely the most disturbing song i have ever heard. It begins like a far off, fanciful dream, but gradually, noises of impending doom from Nico's early memories of air-raids as a child in Germany begin to cause such lyrics as "midnight winds are falling at the end of time" and the title itself, to gradually become twisted and take on dreadful new meaning. This alone elevates this album to the ultimate surreal level of conflicting emotions. And for all who wish to hear the fanciful/wistful tones of the a-cappella "Nibelungen" and the song "Roses in the Snow", the album may be allowed to infiltrate the damaging soundscapes of track 8 with a kind of mystical, if not hopeful levety of sorts. I simply cannot say enough about this album, but it must be listened to to be understood. Buy it right now and embark on a unique dream; one of a brilliant woman who left us far too soon for us to know quite what to make of it all...

• Prelude
• Lawns of Dawns
• No One Is There
• Ari's Song
• Facing the Wind
• Julius Caesar (Memento Hodie)
• Frozen Warnings
• Evening of Light
• Roses in the Snow \o#\c
• Nibelungen \o#\c