Written by: Dave Cantrell

Take a quick trip through Chris Connelly’s near-40 year history over on his Discogs page and any number of threads might jump out at you but of course the  primary one (because it’s the easiest one to see) is the over-arching trajectory from the early days of the ‘Second Industrial Revolution.’ That journey launched with his first band Finitribe which he helped found in his native Scotland at the age of 16 and that began as a post-punk band (with a space between the ‘Fini’ and the ‘Tribe” by the way) before discovering samplers and changing course toward the nascent ‘post-industrial’ scene where Connelly would spend the next two decades, exploring the rich varieties of that world in various iterations (Revolting Cocks, Pigface, occasionally joining the Ministry circus), a change in direction that had been especially energized ‘back in the day’ when he met head Minister Al Jourgensen in London in 1986, a happenstance that could not have been more auspicious and ranks up there with any fated encounter in any genre you care to mention. It’s a legacy that casts a very large and often dark shadow over Connelly’s public profile that, in a way not dissimilar to Mark Lanegan, sometimes overshadows other aspects of his aesthetic drive, a drive that seemingly knows no limits as witnessed by a run of solo albums this century that underlines Connelly’s broader interests that betray a far greater spectrum – one that quite often privileges the vaunted basics of songwriting, arrangement, and earnest melody, all of it with an ear turned toward the rich traditions upon which they are founded – than a brief glimpse at the historic record might suggest.

It’s in this broader, more evolved context that we find ourselves today with the video release of “Ripcord, Ripcord,” the second track to be given the visual treatment from the forthcoming Nico-devoted release Eulogy to Christa: A Tribute to the Music and Mystique of Nico, set to release November 11th (Connelly’s birthday, as it happens) on the Easy Action and Shipwrecked labels depending which side of the Atlantic you inhabit.

The album, consisting primarily of re-conjurings of Nico’s own work (such as the first video offered a few weeks ago, “Eulogy to Lenny Bruce”) along with Connelly originals, is an intensely personal survey of the avant-garde chanteuse known primarily for her contribution to the Velvet Underground’s body of work as well as to the power of that band’s mystique. That she was, like so many icons, a troubled, haunted artist that never shied away from her past and the effect it had on her emotionally and, thereby, creatively, is certainly no secret but, on Eulogy, Connelly provides a testament to not only the immensity of her impact but the very essence of her character and the sheer bravery with which she carried herself despite a past that would bury most of us. Regarding “Ripcord, Ripcord,” and to give just a glimpse of context to the Nico-uninitiated, Connelly offers some background for the track: “When Nico was in her mid-teens, she worked in a U.S. army office in Berlin. She was raped by an American soldier and the soldier was executed. Some have said this may not have happened. Some have gone so far as to call her a liar. This event and the trauma of being in the rubble of post-war Berlin clearly, in my opinion, helped create the haunted spirit of Nico.”

As for the album entire, Connelly literally inhabits the personae of Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico herself and even, rather inescapably, Andy Warhol. It’s an immersive, moving record that without argument represents a new high-water mark in the artist’s career. While drawn in significant part from You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone, the deeply-researched biography by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike published in August 2021, Eulogy adds a moving, contextual layer to that essential book and in so doing brings us about as close as we’re going to get to Nico’s world. So clearly powerful is the devotion to his subject that it’s irresistibly prompted this writer to not only order Bickerdike’s book (which I’ve just done) but to also put Eulogy to Christa: A Tribute to the Music and Mystique of Nico on my new album must-get list and let me be the first to tell you, that almost never happens anymore. It’s simply that, in this case, not being swayed by that prospect is flat-out impossible.