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CMU Approved
Approved: Nick Nicely
By Aly Barchi | Published on Wednesday 9 July 2014
Nick Nicely, real given name Nickolas Laurien, has had an odd and oscillatory time of things as an artist.
There was him having a quick, failed flirtation with EMI in the 1980s (and releasing his closet-iconic ‘greatest hit’ ‘Hilly Fields’ in the midst of that); going AWOL for a bit and then reappearing via the 1990s acid rave scene; and finally finding his rightful place as a lo-fi psych superguy in the eyes of labels like Sanctuary, Grapefruit, Captured Tracks and Burger, who between them released Nicely’s brilliant rarities compilation ‘Psychotropia’, 2011’s cassette-only new LP ‘Lysergia’ and 2011’s review of his early days, ‘Elegant Daze’.
Now hailed as a kind of ‘lost’ great grandaddy to acts like Ariel Pink and John Maus (and indeed, the traces of his tracks in theirs are clear to hear), Nicely is now back amid whisperings of an all-new LP titled ‘Space Of A Second’, releasing via Lo Recordings later this year.
And if Nick Nicely is really “the greatest popstar that never was”, his new single ‘HeadwindAheadwind’ – a neat and beautifully bleary pillbox of fizzling synth-sparks and Nicely’s distant long-and-winding voice – is the great psych-pop track that is, and will always be.
Get wise to it, and to Nick Nicely, here:
