World Premiere Freeload: Nickel Eye f. Wale, “Brandy of the Damned (Ronson Remix)”
- story THE FADER
Ronson played this a couple weeks ago on his EVR show just as we were leaving ours and we had to pull a heel pivot to ask him what it was. As he told us then and we tell you now, it’s his remix of one of our favorite songs on Nikolai Fraiture’s Nickel Eye album, mellowed even further by some gentle hornery, shuffling snares and an almost whispered verse from Wale. If we know Ronson like we think we do, this was probably recorded in a sunken living room in front of a fireplace surrounded by models wrapped in fur drinking hot buttered rum while Nikolai stared out of the panoramic glass walls wondering when he’d get sick of being blessed (never) and Wale spit rhymes into a mic made out of frozen champagne. Or they just emailed each other. Get it here or get it nowhere!
Download: Nickel Eye f. Wale, “Brandy of the Damned (Ronson Remix)”
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posted on Feb 27, 2009 in MP3 / STREAMS tags freeload, Mark Ronson, Nickel Eye, rock, The Strokes, Wale
Exlusive Stream: Nickel Eye (Nikolai Fraiture of The Strokes), “Another Sunny Afternoon”
- story THE FADER
It’s been a good year for those Strokes fanatics among us dismayed by the band’s committment to not record new music until 2009: Fab is in nineteen different California bands, Julian made an appearance in that Converse ad that subsequently put his face on every billboard in NYC, Albert put out his best solo album yet, Nick is cultivating an ill hair style, and now Nikolai has a new album of his own ready to be released in January. On The Time of the Assassins — either a reference to Henry Miller/Rimbaud or a samurai video game, you pick — Fraiture aka Nickel Eye is joined by the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Nick Zinner, Regina Spektor and South, who you might remember from the salad days of Mo’ Wax, or not. We know what your first question is going to be already: That dude is not mute? He is not, in fact, he sings pretty great, like Rufus Wainwright on lots of pills, and the songs are unsurprisingly catchy Strokes-ian jams of varying bounce and mostly acoustic guitar. What is surprising is ol’ Nik’s gift with the pen. All those years of standing silently onstage, he’s been coming up with some real poignant zingers, especially on this FADER exclusive, “Another Sunny Afternoon,” in which he breaks down the good life. You can hear a few more songs on his MySpace, including the first song Ronson played for us last summer, “Brandy of the Damned,” a total jam. Time of the Assassins will be out on Ryko on January 27th.
Nickel Eye, “Another Sunny Afternoon”
