Drama of Exile - Recording

Recording

The original album was plagued by suspicious circumstances. There are different versions of the story, and the truth remains ambiguous.

During the recording a sound engineer stole the unfinished record and sold it to the company Aura which released it immediately. Of course we sued them. We re-recorded the album but the court trial took forever. I had neither money nor strength to go on. The most commonly sold version of Drama Of Exile is unauthorized. We released the original form with Invisible Records but only in a very small edition and so it’s more a collector’s item. — Jacques Pasquier Aura offered to finance one album, to be recorded in London and produced by Philippe Quilichini. Contracts were drawn up, Aura advanced the production costs and recording began almost immediately. Recorded at Gooseberry Studios in Tulse Hill, London, with a band composed of Quilichini, guitarist Mahammad Hadi, drummer Steve Cordonna, Ian Dury's sax player Davey Payne, and Andy Clark, the keyboard player who so sparkled on David Bowie's Scary Monsters album. With the album nearly finished, and sounding great, A.S. received a tip-off from the studio that N. Duget (Nico's unofficial manager) had arranged to steal the master tapes from the studio and sell them, without reimbursing Aura. A.S. scuppered those plans by taking possession of all the tapes. A legal battle ensued, which was to last almost 3 years. Duget claimed Nico had not signed the contract. True, but an agreement was made and Aura had paid out considerable sums in production costs. Ownership therefore rested with Aura. During this period of legal machinations, Nico recorded a single "Sãeta/Vegas" which emerged on the Flicknife label in 1981. In 1982, Nico, tired of all the legal wranglings, abandoned N.D. and P.Q. and asked Aura to finally release the Drama of Exile album. At that time she also signed over the publishing rights to her original Drama songs to Aura Music. In 1983, having won the legal battle, Aura proceeded to release the album. P.Q. was angry and taking no notice of the legal restrictions involved, went back to Paris with some tapes he had secretly copied during recording, he remixed those tapes and had an illegal version of the album released in France. Aura quickly put a stop to this album and it was subsequently withdrawn. — Dave Thompson, liner notes of Nico-Icon CD Quilichini and his girlfriend also hatched a plan to steal the tapes in a bid to cheat Aura Records and sell them on to another company. Aaron Sixx managed to rescue them with a last minute dash to the studios, but with their plan thwarted the couple severely delayed the release of the album by trying to take him to court. But with the record finally released and lauded by many critics as her best ever, Nico embarked on the usual round of promotional interviews. — Fraser Massey, liner notes of Drama of Exile, UK CD edition 1996 "It was all really boring, all that quiet stuff," Nico said of her past albums. "And having been a member of the Velvet Underground, rock'n'roll is something I have to do at some point, even if only for one album"... Sixx admitted that Nico "didn't give a shit what happened to the LP, she just wanted the money for drugs." Yet despite these unconventional circumstances, Drama of Exile would see Nico receive some of the best reviews of her career. — Dave Thompson, Better to Burn Out: The Cult of Death in Rock 'N' Roll

The two versions had slightly different personnel and instrumentation. A version of the original LP recordings was released in 1981 by Aura Records in the Netherlands and Sweden only, several months after the debacle with the masters. The re-make was held up for two years, and was finally released in 1983 by Invisible Records. The original version of the LP was released on CD for the first time in Germany by Line Records in 1988, in the United States by Cleopatra Records in 1993 and in England by Great Expectations Records in 1989.