‘Desertshore’: The Nico album that inspired Björk
There’s an idiom in the French language that describes the feeling you get when you’re compelled to entertain self-destructive tendencies when the seduction of the dark side almost takes over. Deep in the underlayers of many Björk songs, there’s a familiar tension with these temptations, where beauty and sorrow culminate in ultimate chaos, a sentiment Nico also embraced throughout her life.
Björk-Nico comparisons are easy to get behind, but maybe not for the reasons you might think. Yes, they both fall under the broader category of “experimental” musicians and create music that challenges the listening experience, but they also incorporate darkness and vulnerability into the fabrics of their art as a means of exploring their own beliefs and experiences.
Born in post-World War II Cologne, Nico knew what it meant to be an outsider from day one, bringing her off-kilter demeanour into a counterculture scene that could only recognise her aura as mysterious. Nico lived up to the label, of course, but not because she tried to be enigmatic. Rather, her otherworldly presence and knack for calling out pretence made for some surprising atmospheres, where it was often her silence that spoke the loudest.
Björk, on the other hand, epitomised authenticity by constantly shifting, challenging convention with unexpected moves and ambiguous themes. Nico might have been more forthcoming in her own melancholy and self-destructive tendencies, but Björk intertwined her version of such concepts with the world around her, reframing and re-learning how humans in nature can be a conduit for experiencing love and fulfilment or the ultimate recipe for disaster.
This, among many other reasons, is why she likely fell in love with Desertshore, naming it as one of her favourite albums. Written by Nico in 1970, the record explores everything you might expect from Nico’s mind, from doom and gloom to death and destruction, through the overarching lens of human fragility. Desertshore is melancholic but in a more complex and ambiguous way, beginning with a sense of foreboding energy that eventually becomes something more haunting and dreamlike.
‘Janitor Of Lunacy’, for instance, was written about the death of The Rolling Stones’ founding member Brian Jones. Dramatic and eery in essence, the song executed an unmistakably Björk-esque level of experimentalism that might be easy to place on other records like Homogenic perhaps, especially with the overwhelming sense of intense grandeur Nico commits to from start to finish.
Even the slower, more considered or accessible tracks like ‘Afraid’ feel somewhat unpredictable in their own intimacy, reflecting Björk’s penchant for delicate soundscapes that tap into vulnerability without losing their grittiness. Many of these also frame the gothic mirrors of Nico’s own mind, often using spaciousness or minimalism to enhance the emotional depth in a way that highlights life’s own ambiguities.
While both artists utilise experimentalism as a tool for different means and subtleties, Desertshore feels like the place where there’s the most crossover, especially when it comes to borrowing from other genres, like classical, to compose new landscapes that converge meaning with familiarity.
