This album finds Nico (almost) post-Velvet Underground, (almost) pre-heroin and knocking out the teutonic folk in the vein of her Immediate 45 and her vocal tracks on the first VU album, rather than the harmonium doom frenzy of the End and the Marble Index, or the karaoke VU of her latter days. There are songs from Reed, Cale and Jackson Browne (whom I thought was a worthless 70s buckskin wearing cocaine cowboy fit only for death before I heard this album). They all on appear on various tracks along with Sterling Morrison.

Anyone who has only heard the two tracks on the VU boxed set will have a skewed impression of the LP — good as the title cut from Warhol’s film and “It was a pleasure then” are they merely confirm your preconceptions. Anyone for Nico singing Dylan?

Side one opens with “Fairest of the Seasons”, an uplifting Browne song with a string backing — much of the album features strings and flute, bordering on kitsch (but I like that). “These Days” and Reed’s “Little Sister” keep the same vibe before Cale’s slinky “Winter Song” and “It was a pleasure then” start to pump up the doom.

“Chelsea Girls” kicks off the second side, the phrase “heavy fake depression songs” springs to mind but it’s a compliment in this case. Sombre and hypnotic, I can’t remember if this was the version used in the film and I have no great desire to watch it again so… er… I’ll just treasure the soundtrack instead. 

A cover of Dylan’s “I’ll keep it with mine” and another Browne song, “Somewhere there’s a feather”, mark time until “Wrap your troubles in dreams”, surely Lou Reed’s most depressing song of all time which is definitely a mark of distinction. 

“Excrement filters through the brain, hatred bends the spine, filth covers the body pores, to be cleansed by dying time”. Cheer up mate. Nico’s delivery and the stop-start arrangement trance me out in a way her later (and earlier) work never could. After that the brief “Eulogy to Lenny Bruce” seems almost upbeat.

Nico’s solo work is an object of ridicule even to many fans of her former employers, but I’ll take this album as a desert island disc over the VUs first (or second) any day. Maybe not over their third though!

PS The CD reissue is not as sharp as the two cuts on “peel slowly and see” and has lots of distortion on “Eulogy to Lenny Bruce” for some reason but is otherwise OK.