The Drama Of Exile

曰くつきのカムバック作、セカンド・エディションがアナログ・リイシュー!!
「僕は待ち人」カバーも!!1974年に発表された『THE END』の後、ウォーホルのミューズはフランス人監督フィリップ・ガレルと約7本の映画で実りあるパートナーシップを築いた。1979年、ニューヨークに戻った彼女は再びライブ活動を始め、ジョン・ケイルと音楽パートナーのルッツ・ウルブリッヒ(アジテーション・フリーとアシュラ・テンペルの元ギタリスト)とともにCBGBに出演。その後フランスに戻った彼女は、若くて才能あるコルシカ人ベーシストのフィリップ・キリシーニに出会い、1981年にカムバック作『DRAMA OF EXILE』を制作することになる。
このアルバムは、2種類のバージョンでリリースされおり、本盤は初回盤をリリースしたオーラ・レコードとの法的論争を経て1983年にリリースされたセカンド・エディションの再発となります。初回盤は9曲入りだったが、セカンド・エディションは"Purple Lips"を除き、1981年に7インチ・シングルでリリースされた"Saeta"と"Vegas"を追加してという仕様。このアルバムでニコは、ヴェルヴェット・アンダーグラウンドの"I'm Waiting for the Man" とデヴィッド・ボウイの"Heroes"のカヴァーを収録。

It was a shock at the time and today, the thrill still lingers. Almost 15 years after she quit the Velvet Underground, and with four stunningly stubborn solo albums under her belt, Nico was finally ready to return to rock & roll, with a conventional band and a clutch of great songs which proved that, whatever else she'd lost during a career spent on the bleakest fringe of the idiom, the arts of composition and interpretation were not part of it. As a member of the Velvets, she'd performed two songs, the stately "All Tomorrow's Parties" and the fragile "Femme Fatale." Now she added a third to her bow, a relentless "Waiting for the Man" which took its lead from composer Lou Reed's own recent revisions of the song but never lost sight of the trademark primitivism which gave it its original power -- that's not Maureen Tucker on drums, but close your eyes and it could be. Elsewhere, David Bowie's "Heroes" was given an almost militaristic going over, the chopping guitars, rolling drums, and a triumphant Davey Payne sax solo conspiring to prove that while Bowie had written about what he saw in Berlin, Nico sang of what she knew. It was stirring stuff and, again, all the more surprising for who was behind it. Nico reveled in the confusion. "It was really boring, all that quiet stuff," she said of her past albums and, as if to hammer home the point, ensured that even her most reflective moments now swam within a brittle swirl of new wave-inflected rock, and the traditional Eurasian influences which band members Philippe Quilichini and Mahammad Hadi added to Nico's own unique references. Across her own compositions, Drama of Exile explored the faces and places Nico witnessed during her own dramatic exile -- she had spent the first half of the 1970s in hiding, convinced that the Black Panthers had a contract out on her; she resurfaced and was then forced to retreat once again, after an interview quote was interpreted as espousing brutal racism. The haunting, almost Indian-sounding "Orly Flight," the rattled funk of "The Sphinx," and the droning/hypnotic "Purple Lips" all suggested adventures which never made the newspapers, while "One More Chance" made it obvious that she didn't regret one of them. Nor, once this album was assimilated by the world at large, would she ever need to. ~ Dave Thompson