NICO ON THE KILLER ROAD
Patti Smith voices terminal Nico concept suite Killer Road. Plus, the secret of the black harmonium.
Audio-artists Soundwalk Collective were at work on a conceptual piece about the death-day of The Velvet Underground’s Valkyrie Of Doom when a chance airplane seating arrangement delivered Patti Smith (and her daughter Jesse) into the mix. Read on for the full story.
What does the woman born Christa Päffgen have in common with crickets? Ibiza and death, according to Killer Road, a newly-recorded “sound exploration” of the day in July, 1988, when Nico had a fatal heart attack on the Mediterranean island while out riding her bike. Killer Road’s voice is Patti Smith’s, “but my starting point was the crickets,” says Stephan Crasneanscki, founder of Soundwalk Collective, who work with “field recordings, landscape and memory.” Having spent time in Ibiza, he was bewitched by the insects “singing endlessly for their loved ones by rubbing their arms against their bellies, and forgetting to eat, so they die from exhaustion. As Nico did. I assume she heard the crickets as she lay by the roadside.” Crasneanscki recorded the Ibizan crickets in 2012, then gained access to Nico’s unpublished poetry and sampled the last harmonium she owned. A year later, flying home to New York from the Balkans, he found himself seated hext to Patti Smith. After exchanging ideas they met up again at Soundwalk’s studio the next day to perform Nico’s poem Killer Road. Over time, Soundwalk added layers, to reinforce the heat-haze mood of the fateful day. They also adapted eight more pieces (the words largely drawn from Nico LPs Desertshore and Drama Of Exile), including Smith’s improvisations. Joining in was her composer daughter Jesse, credited with “resonating acoustic instruments”. They performed Killer Road live in New York, Berlin and London in 2014, and samples have added to the “magma” of the recorded version, says Crasneanscki. “This gothic, torpid, dense sound of Nico’s, moving slowly, burning. Like Ibiza’s midday heat. Over which Patti delivered and channelled Nico’s words so beautifully. You could sense the audience in a state of torpor too, absorbed by her words.” Jesse admits Nico was a big Smith favourite. “Mom and dad played her records when I was little. My mom knew Nico in the ’70s. She got her harmonium back from a pawn shop, and later on bought her one. Interpreting her poetry on stage, she’d unexpectedly go into a melody or song. Nico’s poetry lends itself to spontaneity.” For Crasneanscki, Killer Road goes equally deep. “One of most beautiful qualities in art is how it can resonate,” he concludes. “I hope we can reach out to a new generation, to rediscover Nico. It keeps her alive.”
Soundwalk Collective’s Killer Road, with Patti Smith, is released on Bella Union on September 2.