Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

For Record Store Day 2023, a limited edition LP was issued featuring a 1980 live recording by Nico, the late German chanteuse who was best known for singing on the first Velvet Underground album in 1967. Live At The Library Theatre '80 was limited to 2,000 copies, and pressed in translucent light-blue vinyl. The LP documents a concert performed by Nico (aka Christa Päffgen) in the small theatre beneath the Manchester Library in England. The sound is very understated, suitably scaled for such a tiny venue, as Nico sings in her eerie, unmelodic voice accompanied mostly by low-volume harmonium. Notably, the recording quality is remarkably clear, in contrast to two other recent Record Store Day live Nico releases . Besides renditions of two of the Velvet Underground songs she was known for (an acappella "All Tomorrows Parties" and a cocktail lounge piano version of "Femme Fatale"), the set list is otherwise drawn from Nico's solo albums from many years earlie