NICK NICELY – Afterworld (2023, LP Fruits de Mer Records)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Fruits de Mer Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Colored Vinyl

Release Date: 20 Mar 2023

Nickolas Laurien (born 1959), known professionally as Nick Nicely (stylized nick nicely), is an English singer-songwriter who records psychedelic and electronic music. He is best known for his 1982 single “Hilly Fields (1892)”. Nicely released only one other record in the early 1980s, the single “D.C.T. Dreams”, before retreating from the music industry. The influence of “Hilly Fields” has been noted on Bevis Frond, Robyn Hitchcock, Robert Wyatt, and XTC’s psychedelic alter egos the Dukes of Stratosphear, as well as the hypnagogic pop movement of the 2000s…

Nick Nicely – a familiar figure to all Fruits de Mer Records aficionados but NOT ONLY – returns with an exciting LP album full of “vintage demos and outtakes”. Keith – boss of FdM Records – explains it all:

“Fruits de Mer’s association with nick nicely dates back to 2012, when we released his successor to the stone-classic “Hilly Fields”, with “Hilly Fields (The Mourning)”; since then, he given us a live version of “49 Cigars”, a wild reworking of “All Along The Watchtower” and many more suitably psychedelic moments to enjoy.

We are proud now to release Nick’s fifth album, “Afterworld”. It takes a dive into the hidden world behind the curtain in his legendarily eternal track completion processes; these vintage demos and outtakes show parts of labyrinthine creative journeys, sometimes taking up eight years to complete, giving the sense of the man hallucinating with songs in an eerily separate universe.

Persuading Nick away from his studio to dig through bin-liners of ancient material has not been straightforward, but FdM are delighted to present this uniquely psychedelic collection – and we look forward to further editions!”…

“Afterworld” contains 9 “alternatives”, all recorded between 2004 to 2012. The album kicks off with “Rosemary’s Eyes”(outtake), an amazing psychotic dark and full of PSYCH track, full of echoed themes, samples, and flangers, with a wonderful addictive melody that can really occupy your Mynd for a long time! “Eels” (abandoned project) is another dark and compelling tune, deeply effected through a cold ‘Psych’ industrialized electronic lens, a superb distortically sick Blues anthem! “DCT Dreams” (alternative version) is an alternate version of Nick’s 7-inch A-side Single from 1980, he mixes blurred vocals with a synth-psych-rhumba rhythm, a lovely weird tune! On “Blood On The Beach” (demo) Nick uses blurry vocals again – it seems he loves to do so – a nice synth-pop melody under an electronically flavored background… “Gallery” (abandoned project) is another “electronic weirdo” track, a blurry and kind of ‘robotic’ tune with an electro-industrialized environment, a fantastic theme melody while lots of weird things are happening in the background… Weirdness continues through the next one, “Whirlpool” (fireborn outtake), a track that flirts with Psych, Rock, Electro, and even EBM, with lots of samples, a super-delic collage of electro-psych obscurities… Awesome… “Rainbow” (Berlin outtake) is a sad and kind of acoustic balladesque tune, of course, drenched into weirdness and psychness… “Further Down The Beach” (early Headwind Aheadwind) is an upbeat song, more electronically flavored (in a way) with a superb “Psych” synth passage, weird sample sounds, a track that acts as a Psych-Electro-Poppy experiment! The experimentation continues on the last track of the album, “Shadows In The Sun” (abandoned project) is a deeply psychotic track, a far-out tune full of brilliance… In conclusion, “Afterworld” is not just an album filled with “outtakes”, “Afterworld” is a fine blend of Psych and Electro dark moments destined to be ‘Cult’… Grab it! TimeLord Michalis

Check the Review of Nick Nicely’s previous release on Fruits de Mer Records, the astonishing 7-inch vinyl Single “All Along The Watchtower”

Tracklist

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