The Marble Index (album)

The Marble Index
Studio album by Nico
Released	May 1969
Recorded	September 1968 at Elektra Sound Recorders, Los Angeles
Genre	Experimental, folk rock
Length	30:48 (original) 37:46 (1991 reissue)
Label	Elektra
Producer	Frazier Mohawk
Nico chronology
Chelsea Girl (1967) The Marble Index (1969) Desertshore (1970)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Piero Scaruffi	(8/10)
Rolling Stone	(Favorable)

The Marble Index is the second solo album by Nico, recorded in 1968 and released in 1969. The album featured long-term associate John Cale, who had worked briefly with Nico during her stint with The Velvet Underground. Cale had an extensive background in various avant-garde settings, working with minimalist composer LaMonte Young, among others.

Nico wrote all her own songs on the record and plays the harmonium. The record has influenced a wide array of various artists, such as Coil, Steve Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Jocelyn Pook, Jackson Browne, Elliott Smith and Dead Can Dance.

Trouser Press described the album as "Nico's disturbing poetry" set to "even more disturbing music; the result is one of the scariest records ever made. Unlike Chelsea Girl, in which Nico tried to adapt to an outmoded chanteuse tradition, The Marble Index blasts her off to her own universe."

Song information

The singer introduced "No One is There" at a live concert in Copenhagen, Denmark on 14 February 1982 by saying, "This song I wrote for Richard Nixon on Halloween. I want to dedicate it to Ronald Reagan." The performance was later included on the 1982 live album, Do or Die: Diary 1982.

"Frozen Warnings" went on to be one of the most performed song from this period of Nico's career. It appears frequently in the extensive volume of live recordings from her final years, including from her famous performance at the Library Theater in Manchester. The song also exists in two studio versions, one with Cale's synthesizer found on The Marble Index as well as a slightly longer version without the synthesizer but an additional repetition of the lyrics "the frozen borderline."

"Lawns of Dawns" was said to be about Nico's experience with peyote in the California desert with Jim Morrison in the late 1960s. Nico commented : "The light of the dawn was a very deep green and I believed I was upside down and the sky was the desert which had become a garden and then the ocean. I do not swim and I was frightened when it was water and more resolved when it was land. I felt embraced by the sky-garden."

"Ari's Song" concerns Nico's only child, Ari Boulogne. While she recorded the track, she brought pictures of the child with her into the booth for inspiration.

"Prelude" is actually a minute-long instrumental of the outtake "Réve Réveiller," which was a song sung in French that was excluded from the album's release.

The album's final track, "Evening of Light," was made into a video clip to promote the album. It features Nico walking around a field with others, including a white-faced Iggy Pop, who run amok while Nico elegantly strides with the wind blowing her hair in her face. The clip ends with the men erecting a cross and setting it aflame. (The clip was shot behind the Stooges' house in Ann Arbor).

Track listing

All songs written by Nico.

Side one

1. "Prelude" – 1:00
2. "Lawns of Dawns" – 3:11
3. "No One Is There" – 3:37
4. "Ari's Song" – 3:21
5. "Facing the Wind" – 4:55

Side two

6. "Julius Caesar (Memento Hodié)" – 5:02
7. "Frozen Warnings" – 4:02
8. "Evening of Light" – 5:40

On CD release only

9. "Roses in the Snow" – 4:10
10. "Nibelungen" – 2:43

Outtakes (featured on The Frozen Borderline: 1968-1970)

1. 'Rêve Réveiller' (Awakened Dream) - 4:07
2. 'Sagen Die Gelehrten' (Wise Men Say) - 3:53

Personnel

• Nico: vocals, harmonium
• John Cale: electric viola, piano, bass, electric guitar, glockenspiel, bells, mouth organ, bosun's pipe (see Boatswain's call)

External links

• Gadfly essay on Nico