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Nico

Nico

Since 1967 · Germany

Born Christa Päffgen in Cologne in 1938, Nico arrived at the Factory already strange… Their story

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Who they shaped

In front, left to right: Anna von Hausswolff, Cat Power, Xiu Xiu.

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Desertshore (1970)

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Built on harmonium drones, bowed strings, and Nico's baritone pressing down like a change in barometric pressure, Desertshore is the darkest and most sustained entry in her solo catalog. 'Janitor of Lunacy' became a reference point for industrial and gothic music alike, its oscillating minor melody lodged in the ear long after the record ends. Cale's arrangements are orchestral in implication but spare in practice, leaving vast negative space around each song.

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Nico

Desertshore · 1970

Born Christa Päffgen in Cologne in 1938, Nico arrived at the Factory already strange: a model and actress who had appeared in Fellini's La Dolce Vita and accumulated an extraordinary life before she was twenty-five. Her contribution to The Velvet Underground & Nico is often treated as an adjunct — a Warhol imposition the band resented — but her three solo lead vocals on that record, including the elegiac "Femme Fatale" and the bottomless "I'll Be Your Mirror," have a quality Reed and Cale could not have manufactured themselves: a European melancholy, ancient and weightless.

Her solo records — Chelsea Girl (1967), The Marble Index (1969), Desertshore (1970) — defined the cold, droning end of art-rock before that terminology existed. With John Cale producing, she played harmonium and sang songs that felt like transmissions from an occupied country. The Marble Index in particular: stark, barely accompanied, seemingly indifferent to any notion of entertainment. Artists as different as the Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, and Julee Cruise carry something of Nico's hollowed-out beauty in their DNA.

Since 1967 · Germany