Philippe Garrel is a French underground film maker who made a series of films with Nico between 1969 and 1979 . She performed The Falconer for his film Le Lit de la Vierge (The Virgin’s Bed) in 1969 and in 1970 La Cicatrice Interieure (The Inner Scar) featured more songs, some of which appeared on Nico’s third album Desert Shore. Stills from the film  featured on the album cover. I was always transfixed by Nico’s maudlin darkness and found her records rather uplifting out of pure fascination. It wasn’t the Velvet Underground that brought me to Nico’s records, it was Nico. These underground films are really only for art cinema nuts you don’t grow to like them you either do or you don’t. What follows is the complete film La Cicatrice Interieure .

If this isn’t your thing then listen quietly to the album here:

In 2012 Chris and Cosey released an interpretation of the album  as X-TG as part of a double CD called Desert Shore/The Final Report with guest vocalists, including Marc Almond, Blixa Bargeld, Sasha Grey, Gaspar Noé  and Antony Hegarty.  Originally Peter Christopherson from Throbbing Gristle’s idea, he unfortunately died before the project was finished. You can hear Antony’s Janitor Of Lunacy here: