The Marble Index by Nico John Cale (Vinyl, 1969)

Music on Vinyl

8718469536191

15050145786

Nico, John Cale

Vinyl

1969

Art Rock

The Marble Index

LP

Rock

Personnel includes: Nico (vocals, harmonium). Includes liner notes by Richard Williams. At the time that Nico released her first album, Chelsea Girl, in 1968, she was the toast of the Warhol crowd, a familiar face in the society pages, featuring in fashion magazines throughout the Western world. By the time The Marble Index appeared the following year, her record label advances went largely towards medical bills, as her beauty and talent diminished in the face of something very familiar to the Warhol crowd: a heroin habit. Produced by former Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale, The Marble Index established Nico as a songwriter. Her gothic compositions, intoned in her unearthly voice, captured all too well the angst of one whose much-heralded looks hid a soul that was unable to allow itself to feel or express love.

Uncut (p.92) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "THE MARBLE INDEX isn't a record you listen to. It's a hole you fall into....One of that rare breed of recordings which, the better part of four decades later, still has no adequate peer, existing in a genre all of its own." The Wire (6/00, pp.35-6) - "...[A] glacial classic....shimmering song-mirages which disappear with the harmonium's dying notes..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.108) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Freed from pop conventions, Nico wrote stark, symbolist lyrics that appear to have issued from her subconscious..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.79) - "Viola flourishes and drones courtesy of fellow VU exile John Cale further dramatise the record's innate melancholy, sublime elegance and haunted howl."

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