Alternative music legend Chris Connelly presents his new album ‘Eulogy to Christa: A Tribute to the Music & Mystique of Nico’, a colossal 24-track offering released by Shipwrecked Industries in the USA and Easy Action in the UK, paying tribute to Nico – iconic muse of The Velvet Underground and one of the most unique, tragic and misunderstood female artists in the history of music.
Along with this, Connelly presents a new video for ‘Femme Fatale’ created by Iain W. Mutch/Walkerandwilliam in Scotland. Originally performed to perfection by Nico with The Velvet Underground, this iconic song was penned by Lou Reed.
‘Eulogy to Christa’ is a labour of love, empathy, sadness, acting and channeling, along with Chris’s adoration of the dark corner of rock inhabited by the Velvets and their peers. Now based in Chicago, this album from the Scottish counter-culture icon sees Connelly purposefully adopt the personas of Nico, Lou Reed and John Cale – even Andy Warhol makes a cameo!
Chris Connelly has been creating for circa 40 years. Since his days with Fini Tribe in Edinburgh, Chris Connelly has over 20 solo releases. He frequently collaborates with other musicians, including notable projects like Ministry, The Revolting Cocks and Pigface, while contributing to newer ones such as Cocksure and The Joy Thieves. He has also published four books (poetry, autobiographical and fictional narrative).
Initially planned as an album of 10 Nico covers, Connelly ultimately decided to write some additional compositions, spanning her life. The Nico material spans from her first Jimmy Page-composed single and her time with The Velvet Underground to her intense and unique solo recordings up until her death. In song, Connelly follows her from Berlin to New York via Paris, Ibiza, and Rome, then back through Paris, London, Edinburgh, Manchester and up to her tragic and needless death in Ibiza.
This follows ‘Ripcord, Ripcord’, which Connelly wrote surrounding a little known detail about Nico’s life – her rape by a military officer while she was a teenager holding an administrative position for the US Army. This incident and the trauma of being in the rubble of post-war Berlin would inform the rest of her volatile life and create the haunted spirit of Nico.
The album’s lead track ‘Eulogy to Lenny Bruce’, heralded by some as Connelly’s finest vocal performance, appeared on Nico’s 1967 album ‘Chelsea Girl’. Penned by the tragic Tim Hardin about the equally tragic Lenny Bruce but with slightly altered lyrics, Nico’s sorrowful delivery is laced with anger at Bruce’s death.
On this album, Connelly worked with producer and long-time collaborator Chris Bruce, who is a band member of Meshell Ndegeocello and also worked with Seal, Aaron Neville, Bob Dylan, The Waterboys, My Brightest Diamond, Cheryl Crow and Sam Phillips.
The album was, in part, inspired by the book ‘You Are Beautiful and Your Are Alone’ by Jennifer Otter Bickerdicke, who contributed to album liner notes, noting “This is a record to be played at full blast, all the way through, as a commemoration not just to Nico the person, the musician, but to art for art’s sake, for making something because it is important and needs to be done – an idea that is as rare and precious as Nico herself.”
As of November 11, this ‘Eulogy to Christa’ album will be available via Bandcamp, as well as Apple Music and Amazon, coinciding with Connelly’s birthday. The CD version will be released on December 4.
TRACK LIST – DISC ONE
1: Ripcord, Ripcord
2: Via Margutta
3: The Last Mile
4: Union Square West
5: Andy, Incidentally
6: Femme Fatale
7: Eulogy to Lenny Bruce
8: Oh Jim II
9: Frozen Warnings
10: I Cannot Care for You
11: The Falconer
TRACK LIST – DISC TWO
12: The Black Rooms of Richelieu
13: Valley of the KIngs
14: Reims 12/74
15: A Slow Jones in New York
16: 80s Beat Boys
17: Running Pure
18: Sixty Forty
19: Vegas
20: Draw From It (Like a Vampire)
21: Saeta
22: Tananore
23: FA Massa Calor
24: Hanging Gardens of Semiramis
