Nick Nicely-Space of a Second (Lo Recordings)

I never heard of UK psych artist Nick Nicely until a month or so ago when The Active Listener reviewed this album. That Nick has been around since the early 1980s and has no less than Bevis Frond among his fans speaks a lot to the quality and variety of his musical vision. Nick brings a unique form of psychedelia to the table, in that he makes use of found sounds and many layers of snippets all pieced together into the most delightful sonic kaleidoscope. He arguably may also be the first instance of a person scratching on a rock record (“Hilly Fields”), and he predated The Dukes of Stratosphear by a few years. Both bands operate in the same Sgt. Pepper and Syd Barrett influenced world full of Carnaby Street goodness. Nick has taken the road less traveled with his kitchen sink psychedelia, veering this way and that and messing up your headspace before you realize he’s fallen headfirst down the rabbit hole and dragged you with him.

Fame nearly found him back in the 1980s, when Trevor Horn took an interest and he was signed to EMI for a time. But instead, his debut album Psychotropia didn’t make an appearance for two more decades on Tenth Planet Records. And now we have this new release out on UK imprint Lo Recordings, which includes an acoustic read of his old song “Hilly Fields” and a stellar collection of oddball tunes ranging from the deeply lysergic “Rosemary’s Eyes” to the title track and the gorgeous “Wrottersley Road”, with its spacey washes of keyboards and bliss inducing music guaranteed to shoot you into orbit, all without the benefit of chemicals.

Nicely is a brilliant sonic architect, and one can only imagine the work that went into these hallucinogenic visions of his. For lovers of baroque psychedelia, you will be overly pleased, for Nick has really delivered on the goods here, only he has done it in such a way that you will never expect the next hook or burst of raw noise that he lobs at you. It is all so unexpected, listening to this record. It is neither run of the mill psychedelia or easy listening, and will take a dedicated set of ears to truly appreciate its finer nuances. And may I suggest if you enjoy any of the genres or influences mentioned herein, go straight to your fine local record store and buy this post haste.

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