Customer Reviews

Drama of Exile

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nico is usually asociated either with the Velvet Underground / Andy Warhol thing of the '60's, or else with the early Goth thing of Bauhaus in the '80's (even joining them for a live cover of Waiting For My Man). However, it's surprising how few people are aware of her work with the Faction- her band in the early '80's. While they only released two albums- this and Camera Obscura- both desreve to be remembered.
Drama Of Exile is not like anything that Nico had done before. It actually makes a very valiant effort to be pop; it fails of course, but it tries. Don't take that as an insult. Nico could no more fit into pop than she could fly under her own power, but boy could she ROCK!
The music is rock. It is very multi-ethnic simply because the band was multi-ethnic and each musician developed a clearly unique style of approach to his instrument. The drums are straight ahead with some aggressive patterns; the guuitar is high, thin and brittle with a distinctly middle-eastern flair (very cool); the keyboards are spare and avant-rock / art-punk (does that make sense?), while the bass is melodic with complex arrangements while still giving the songs a firm anchor.
By far, though it's Nico herself that makes the album wonderful to hear. Her voice on this album is closer in quality to the VU / Chelsea Girl days although there is a roughness (brought about sadly by years of excesses of all sorts). This lends the album a rich, three-diminsional quality that a better singer with a more sheltered "good, clean" life just could never touch. Her lyrics are as challenging as ever, though the music is far more accessable. Stand outs are 'Ghengis Kahn', 'Purple Lips',
'Sixty /Forty', 'Orly Flight', and her covers of the VU's 'Waiting For My Man' and Bowie's 'Heroes'- a song she sings with ginuine conviction and honest realism.
In the end, those two qualities are what this whole album is about. Fans of Nico that don't have this yet really should. Those just getting into Nico might want to wait until after they have 'The Velvet Underground And Nico' and 'Chelsea Girl'. Also recommended for fans of eclectic,experimental (though only slightly) and fusion music.
Oh yeah- and Goths. :)

...and delivers her most accessible work since CHELSEA GIRL.

Clearly indebted to the Bowie/Iggy/Roxy/Kraftwerk school of oblique, decadent art-rock with nods to New Wave, disco, funk, electronica, and floating Byzantine exotica -- the penultimate DRAMA OF EXILE lives up to its name in spades.

She now has Phillipe "Kilikini" Quilichini for a collaborator (instead of John Cale or Brian Eno) and together they conjure forth a protean piece of soundcraft with breezy arabesque synthesizers, cool jangly guitars, thumping beats, squiggly squealing saxophones, scything violins, and God-knows-what-else swirling in the mix.

This Teutonic Moon Goddess is Brunnhilde back from the primeval Wagnerian funeral pyre...a spectral, sepulchral New Romantic banshee with a pocket full of mantras, mandalas, matchsticks, cryptograms, wormwood and mandrake...resurrecting Genghis Khan and Henry Hudson and leading you down the road from ancient Niebelungenland to glittering Vegas and "the boy with a wild smile like Bonaparte."

As for the other songs..."Heroes" is surprisingly solid and epic and perhaps even a little more resonant than Bowie's original (her German-ness gives it an added poignance).... Although I dare say the utterly tuneless take on "I'm Waiting for My Man" leaves us a little queasy.

MY CD booklet has some great pics of our Christa Pfaffgen -- a marble beauty wrapped in gossamer black -- draping her arm over a tombstone, posing with her son Ari, and falling asleep a la Warhol.

Ahhhh...that imperious bearing...those eternal cheekbones...the hair once flaxen like an Aryan-uberfrau-schoolgirl now turned sable...and that luscious, sensuous mouth....MMMMMMM....WHAT A GORGEOUS AND GLORIOUS PHYSIOGNOMY! You can keep all your vapid teenage-junkie supermodels, THIS IS MYSTICAL NECROPHILIAC SEX APPEAL FOR THE AGES, BABY!

Never mind Siouxsie Sioux...here's NICO, the once and future QUEEN OF THE GOTHS!

Contrary to popular belief, Nico lost neither her voice, nor her talent for gripping and engaging tunes and words, in her later career. She may have pulled back a bit on her trademark harmonium, but that was used for any number of these songs on any live album of hers (of which there are many), you can find.

This album is about Nico's many experiences, feeling like she had no particular home, and enjoying the wandering like a gypsy of sorts.

The album starts with the stirring and altogether fantastic number "Genghis Khan", in which she muses on feelings of destiny to someone who she met, who is, whether literally or figuratively, thought of as the reincarnation of the title person. Whichever the case, it is applied to these serious, yet mystically portrayed emotions.
The second song, Purple Lips, is about miscommunication, loss, and feelings of coldness and bitterness. Nevertheless, the love survives through the song, and adds flavour to its dreamy percussion and synthesizer touches.
In "One More Chance", we find Nico musing, however cryptically (as usual ;), about the fate of a family, and various relationships. It discusses strength, uncertainty, and the need to wait out important turning points in life. The beat is driving and the melody another standout in this album. Something about her vocals adds the sort of unusual sense of hope and elevation that interjects itself even into her bleakest songs.
The next song "Henry Hudson", finds her by the river, representing a place of thought and heartbreak, yet a sort of steadfast devotion, casually played up by the funky, loose beat. A very cool song.
The next song "I'm Waiting For the Man" is a sly yet suitably burned-out sounding tale of the monotony of being a consumer in drug trafficing. It's a cover of one of the songs on the first Velvet Underground, that she herself did not get the opportunity to sing the first time. Unfortunately, it gives a sad reflection on her own life, but it too, has been part of her journey.
Another major standout track "Sixty/Forty", though not entirely clear as to the source of its numeric title, is a melancholy yet resolved musing on the nature of fame (fleeting, is is clear), and directly adressing the principles governing what changes one is going to allow to be made in their life, discussed, from her perspective as leaving the sentimentality of New York; "Will there be another time/...Another year/Another wish to stay?/...Will there be another word to say/Or do we have to give it all away?" The version here is good, however, the demo version on the "drama of exile" "remixed" album is far superior.
The theme of devotion to some kind of mystical or drving force of love etc, is readressed in this very Middle-Eastern sounding song, which speaks of one for whom she will wait for any amount of time, thoroughly steadfast in her lonliness.
The next to last song "Orly Flight", is a rather Indian sounding, calming song directly about her instances of travel, mroe specifically for touring purposes. It gives her the time to inspect her wishes of embracing the future and accepting all the events that bring her to this place [in life].
The last song, "Heroes", is a cover of a David Bowie song which was actually written about her in the first place. It's amusing to hear her intone "I...I will be king/And You...You will be queen" over the pounding, disco-like beats. But it's a very catchy and carefree sort of song about total involvement in a relationship, totally regardless of the stupidity of the surrounding world.
The Middle-Eastern rooted band add great effect to this album, especially with the electric guitar that is utilized so well.
My only complaint about this addition, was that it left out the two notable singles, the lovely/dreamy "Saeta", and the funky "Vegas".
However, those are easily on any of her best-of collections.
All in all, this is a terrific and thoroughly engaging musical journal through the ins and outs and the mystical emotions that pervade one's life in a kind of "exile" form the unnecessary elements that dog us, which we are to express.

After spending seven years living in near isolation in Paris where she apparently spent most of her time working on a heroin habit (she was also reportedly afraid the Black Panthers had ordered a hit on her), in the late 1970s Nico moved back to New York City and tentatively returned to music. Her 'comeback' came in the form of a 1980 performance at CBGB's which won rave reviews from local critics and saw her begin to play more and more dates, including a brief tour along the East Coast and Midwest. Buoyed by her touring successes in 1981 Nico returned with her first studio album in seven years.

While the details remain murky, there are actually two versions of the "Drama of Exile" LP and numerous stories behind the alternative LPs.

Nico always claimed the original tapes had been stolen by a sound engineer who sold the unfinished material to the English Aura label. Aura immediately released the collection even though Nico filed suit. In the meantime Nico went back into the studio and with a slightly different line up of musicians re-recorded some of the tracks and recorded additional material which was then released by the French Invisible Records label with different artwork and a slightly different track listing.

Another version has Nico selling the master tapes for $4,000 in order to feed her heroin habit.

The third and most credible version has Aura Records president Aaron Sixx offered to finance one album. The company advanced Nico's management the money only to discover that her 'manager' Nadett Duget and producer Philippe Quilichini planned to steal and sell the master tapes to another company. Sixx reportedly grabbed all of the tapes before that could happen, quickly releasing the unfinished material in Holland and Sweden. Before the LP could be released in the UK, or the States Nico's management slapped Aura with a lawsuit. That led to a nasty extended legal case with Nico pointing out she'd never signed a contract with the company, though she'd accepted Aura's recording money. In the end Nico ended up parting ways with her management and signing over published rights to the new songs to Aura. Producer Quilichini then supposedly took some of the working tapes to Paris where he remixed the material, added a couple of previously recorded numbers that had been dropped from the original LP and released it on the French Invisible label. Aura quickly slapped with an injunction on the LP and it was withdrawn from circulation. Finally, in 1983 the LP saw a UK release.

So in the end what was all legal maneuvering and excitement about?

Recorded in London with Corsican-born Quilcihni producing (he also played bass on the sessions) and backing from an international cast of studio musicians including keyboardist Andy Clarke (who'd engineered and played on David Bowie's "Scary Monsters" album and Ian Dury and the Blockheads sax player Davey Payne, the set offered up a strange, but intriguing mixture of rock, prickly new wave, punk aggression, and an early stab at world music influences. The set was apparently intended to be something of an autobiographical statement covered Nico's past, present and future lives ... Don't even ask me what that really means. "Genghis Khan' was inspired by some guy she met in Spain who she thought looked like her vision of the man. Regardless of the inspiration, coupled with Nico's heavily accented droning voice and typically icy and mysterious lyrics the results may not strike many folks as being a particularly appealing mixture, but that really wasn't the case. Propelled in large part by Mohammad Hadi's biting guitar the results were brittle and more than a little scary (gawd only knows why but Nico dedicated 'The Spinx' to German terrorist Andreas Baader). At the same time there was no denying that Nico and company actually rocked out ... The set certainly had some lapses. Producer Quilichini added a weird tinny production sound to collection which didn't do much to benefit Nico's already limited vocals prowess and the decision to cover Lou Reed's 'Waiting for the Man' with a bland martial arrangements wasn't particularly smart , though I liked her bouncy (I'm using the term loosely) cover of David Bowie's 'Heroes'. 'Course Nico repeatedly claimed both songs had been written for her, so why not go ahead and record them?

"Drama of Exile" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) Genghis Khan (Nico) -
2.) Purple Lips (Nico) -
3.) One More Chance (Nico) -
4.) Henry Hudson (Nico) -
5.) Waiting for the Man (Lou Reed) -

(side 2)
1.) Sixty Four (Nico) -
2.) The Spinx (Nico) -
3.) Orly Flight (Nico) -
3.) Heroes (David Bowie - Brian Eno) -


In case anyone's interested, here's the information on the withdrawn version of the LP:


Invisible Records catalog number C 3813

"Drama of Exile" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) One More Chance (Nico) - 4:13
2.) The Sphinx (Nico) - 4:00
3.) Sãeta (Nico) - 3:40
4.) Genghis Khan (Nico) - 3:34
5.) Heroes (David Bowie - Brian Eno) - 5:41

(side 2)
1.) Henry Hudson (Nico) - 3:46
2.) 60/40 (Nico) - 4:35
3.) Orly Flight (Nico) - 2:48
4.) Vegas (Nico) - 3:30
5.) I'm Waiting For the Man (Lou Reed) - 4:14

There's actually another version of the album. In 1993 the American Cleopatra label released the collection domestically in CD format (catalog number CLEO10792). Naturally it sported different cover art.


One final tidbit, Quilichini died in a 1983 car accident.

How can you not LOVE her? The music is brilliant, the voice is unlike any other. She's like a feminine man trying to be masculine and dangerous. A drag queen mafiaso if you will. And thats just her voice! My favorites are "Sixty Forty", her cover of Bowie's "Heroes", "Orly Flight", and "Genghis Kahn". Pure attitude, without any pretention.

Goth godmother Nico was always her best in front of a spare instrumentation section. Even in the Velvet Underground, her songs tended to be relatively simple and spare; when she departed the Underground, her songs became richer but still simple.

All that flew out the window with "Drama of Exile," a sickly match of Nico's talents with funk-disco art-rock. After the cy grandeur of albums like "The End" and "Chelsea Girl," this screechy disaster buries Nico's talents under a bizarre swirl of incompatible instruments. In other words, it's a mess.

"Ghengis Khan" starts with some thumping drums and squiggly synth. Okay, all right -- every artist has the right to evolve and go in different musical directions. But Nico's voice shows that this wasn't a good direction -- she sounds as distant and computerized as Britney Spears.

Were it only that song, then the album wouldn't be so bad. Unfortunately, the dark, computerized sound continues throughout "Drama of Exile," almost without reprieve. The worst moment is a wildly overproduced cover of the Velvet Underground's "Waiting For the Man," cluttered with sonic noise and robotic vocals.

A few of the songs, however, are more downtempo and simple. "Sixty Forty," "Sphinx" and the quietly swirling "Orly Flight" all have a less dancepoppy flavour, and allow Nico to take center stage. She still sounds rather robotic, but the jangly guitars and chaotic synth aren't taking over the song. At some points, she sounds completely natural.

But alas, the album isn't three songs long. Instead, it's burdened with a series of art-dance songs, which are overloaded with too many instruments playing all at once. And the greatest crime is that Nico herself is literally lost in the mix; her throaty, thick voice is rendered flat and sterile by overproduction.

"Drama of Exile" is perhaps the worst album of Nico's too-short career, a messy melange of musical trends that smothered her natural talents. Only for Nico completists.

When maurauding tribesmen on horseback come charging into your village to rape and pillage they won't be playing Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries. Nico revitalizes Bowie's heroes

I own the Original Version and the Remix Album of DRAMA AND EXILE, and I mostly like the Remix-Version, although the Original-Version has the songs *SAETA & VEGAS* which I hardly wanned to have, and I'm happy with this win

I can't really comment on the mix or anything here. I have a French cd that I was told was the 'true Drama.' Others before that time were called 'incomplete or original' mixes. I've heard some stories. Can anyone clarify? I have the Aura Anthnlogy which I can hear a slight difference in the mixes, notably an earlier point of fade-in at the begining of One More Chance. Also. the French issue I have does not contain Purple Lips. I don't know why. Anyway, Sixty Forty has got to be the best thing she ever did. One More Chance is just incredible, oh that guitar part...I would call it the best guitar part ever put on a rock record. Don't know the player, some arab, I guess... As for the 'dance/disco' comments here. I really don't get it. I really don't hear the resemblance. It's all in your mind. Nico is winter music. This is her summer album, that's all...

Sepulchral and spectral indeed as a previous reviewer said. Add to that: lugubrious, morbid, depressing, but that's Nico! I do not think this is her best album - that honour belongs to The End, Marble Index or Chelsea Girl. The production here is messy (but that may also be considered an advantage by some of her fans!) and the material not up to standard. Except for Heroes and I'm Waiting For My Man which I love. Her version of Heroes is quite impressive in its teutonic grandeur, while Waiting ... swings & rattles along nicely. This album is only for the really devoted.