3. NicoThe Marble Index
Marble Index was the album by Nico that really turned my head. I probably acquired it when I was about 16. I used to buy my records from the Oxfam shops, the ‘opportunity shops’. Someone who went there obviously liked The Velvet Underground because there were lots of their records, as well as Nico and Lou Reed’s solo albums. I didn’t like a lot of their music, but I did love Nico. Marble Index was among that batch of albums. It was way back, pre-cassette. I was just very curious; I used to buy records because I liked the cover. I didn’t have a clue who they were. I loved it when someone had a cigarette or something, I would think, ‘Oh, that looks interesting.’ I would never buy anything if it had a bunch of guys in suits and bow ties on the cover!
Nico played harmonium, she played a little piano. I loved her, because my career started with playing the accordion when I was 12. I did identify with the fact that there was an orchestra inside every note of the harmonium, and the piano accordion. So when I heard her, it gave me permission to play the piano accordion in an abstract way. You didn’t have to do ‘jigs and reels’, you could just play and sing to it. What you realise is that the accordion is inside this huge wooden lung, and it’s got woodwind, and strings and organs, it has all of these sounds inside when you touch these chords. They’re all in there. That’s what struck me about the instrument, that it’s so tactile. It didn’t matter if you played one note or 10. Just feeling the vibration of it against your chest when you’re playing it, it almost activates this automatic response which is to sing. I love that about Nico with the harmonium; even though she didn’t have that presence of this wooden lung against the outside of her chest, she had something that was in some way similar [to the accordion] in that it sounds like an orchestra trapped inside a music box.
