Nico - Evening of Light + The Falconer

Today I checked out the recently released Nico compilation The Frozen Borderline which consists of Nico's second and third albums, The Marble Index and Desertshore, plus lots of outtakes and alternative versions. It was my first time hearing any Nico material that wasn't Chelsea Girl, and it's much different than I expected. For one the material is much more experimental than that of her debut, as well as darker. Unlike Chelsea Girl on The Marble Index and Desertshore, Nico had written all the songs, though John Cale composed the arrangements.

The first song I've selected, "Evening of Light," concludes The Marble Index in it's original order. I love how the track begins with just harmonium and Nico's vocals yet the background noise gradually increases and becomes more dissonant until the end where finally the songs seems to break it its hindges and disintegrates.

Nico - Evening of Light

"Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
A true story wants to be mine
The story is telling a true lie
Mandolins are ringing to his viol singing

Midnight winds are landing at 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

Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
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

Midnight winds are landing at the end of time
The children are jumping in the evening of light
A thousand sins are heavy in the evening of light"

From the first listen I like Desertshore better out of the two. However I consistently had the feeling that while I was enjoying the album and it sounded interesting, I felt that with a few more listens I could possibly prefer these releases over Chelsea Girl. "The Falconer" is a particularly haunting track, where its gloom is only momentarily broken around the 3 minute mark where a pleasant piano line fades in. It ends interestingly as you hear a *thunk* noise and the song instantly becomes silent. This is a difficult song to describe yet from some reason I really enjoy it.

Nico - The Falconer

"The falconer is sitting on
His summersand at dawn
Unlocking flooded silvercages
And with a silverdin arise
All the lovely faces
And the lovely silvertraces erase
My empty pages

The falconer is sitting on
His summersand at dawn
Beside his singing silverwaves
And his dancing rebelrace
That compose ahead of timeless time
A sound inside my candle light

Father child
Angels of the night
Silverframe my candlelight"

Nico - The Frozen Borderline @Amazon.com