Don Nino, renamed Don Niño in 2012, is no longer his first attempt. Since the inaugural Real Seasons Make Reasons back in 2001, where he murmured his cries for the first time*, Parisian Nicolas Laureau has traveled, experienced the bliss of fruitful encounters (notably his collaborations with Shane Aspegren, Luke Sutherland and Françoiz Breut ) and the wounds of disappointments (his last two albums to date seem to have reached a limited audience). The last trophy dates from 2007, it is the album Mentors Menteurs!. It consists in some ways of playing with his teenage idols: the album is a collection of often irreverent covers ranging from pieces by Prince to Serge Gainsbourg via Sonic Youth or Caetano Veloso… The Beatles cover A Day In The Life appears on a compilation, tribute to the Fab Four, alongside versions by Bowie, the Beach Boys, etc… But then, what are these 31 audio tracks soberly presented on the Prohibited Records’ Bandcamp page, under the title Collected In The Dust? Is it a disparate and soulless material? Or on the contrary, of all that the dust tells of hidden treasures? First of all, it should be noted that Nicolas Laureau took meticulous care in choosing and editing these tracks, that he organized a tracklisting according to the temporality of the recordings and their potential destinations. Thus, pieces recorded in the studio as a group, traces of the first emotions (1999), rare pieces intended for compilations from cult labels (Acuarela, Doki Doki), cover songs never published (Sting, Robert Johnson, Prince’s Purple Rain…) and pieces recorded in the energy of everyday life, without an specific goal.
If Collected In The Dust wants to fulfill a goal, it is indeed summoning the mystery of creation, on a time scale which doesn’t take notice of the current production rules, where an artist must give birth at regular intervals to a calibrated and potentially profitable. These 31 audio tracks, these thirty-one pieces are all testimonies to the regular and patient work of a music lover, who only talks about time flying and love stories, with his songs or those of others.
Let’s hear what he says: Don Niño: “When I finished The Keyboard Songs in 2015, I knew the record wouldn’t come out right away and I had some time to devote to my archives, there were a lot of things I cared about, which had remained in the drawers. In the same way as for the celebration of the twenty years of Prohibited Records, I took care to sort this out and the Collected In the Dust project was born. Very quickly, I drew the cover and determined the outlines. Today, we have the possibility of making recordings available in good broadcast conditions to the public, without going through physical distribution and even if I think it is more of an artistic gesture than a commercial gesture – in the sense that an album release is often a commercial gesture – I believe that it is the moment for me to reveal all these finds, sometimes fragile, sometimes funny, sometimes perfect in my eyes, which testify to the artist that I am and that I have been for the past fifteen years. I divided it into three parts: unreleased or rare pieces including covers, pieces intended for films, and finally the demotapes. I care about the latter (Demotapes) because I sincerely believe that the first gesture, that of a model, constitutes a primal and decisive act, the rest is only kinda reorganization of an art.
* In an interview with Richard Robert for Les Inrockuptibles in 2001, he stated “Yesterday, I shouted murmurs, today I murmured cries“, thus comparing his shouted singing in the group Prohibition (1989 – 1999) with his rather whispered voice in the context of Don Niño.
Collected in the dust is a recollection of 31 unreleased, rare or demo tracks recorded between 1999 and 2015 by Don Niño / Don Nino
— RARE & UNRELEASED —
1 — Paint Me In Watercolors (2002)
2 — The Waving Bed (2001)
3 — If Only We Could Talk (2001)
4 — To The Board (2001)
5 — Easy Mistake (2001)
6 — I’m Saying Good-Bye (2001)
7 — So Close (2001)
— COVER —
8 — Purple Rain (Prince Cover, 2003)
— RARE & UNRELEASED —
9 — Tell Me How (2001)
10 — Maybe They Will (2001)
11 — With Our Hearts Beating So fast (2002)
12 — In Movies (2005)
13 — We Do A Key (2007)
— COVER SONGS—
14 — Madonna, Sean and Me (Sonic Youth cover, 2003)
15 — Porque Te Vas (Jeanette cover, 2003)
16 — Russians (Sting cover, 2007)
— RARE & UNRELEASED —
17 — Volcano (2012)
18 — We Were So High (2012)
19 — Progression Regression (2012)
— COVER —
20 — Me and The Devil (2015)
— FOR FILMS —
21— A tDawn (2001)
22— Le Petit Train (2001)
23 — South Chanting (2003)
24 — The Neverending Song (2003)
25 — Beside (2001)
26 — Nico’s Journey (2001)
— DEMO TAPES —
27 — Bombtrack (1999)
28 — Southern Sister (2000)
29 — Eli Said (2002)
30 —She’s Back In Town (2002)
31 — Do The Skies (2002)
Most of the lyrics are available in the songs details section.
All songs performed by Don Nino
— #8 #14 #15 #16 #20 are cover songs —
#2 #4 #5 #7 # 21 # 25 Drums by Lori Sean Berg.
#3 #4 #10 Drums by Ludovic Morillon.
# 16 Drums by Shane Aspegren.
#17 #18 #19 Drums by Mitch Pires.
#17 #19 Vocals, Guitar, Violin by Luke Sutherland.
#2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #9 #10 #16 #17 #18 #19 #21 Mixed by Fabrice Laureau.
#20 Mixed by Raphaël Seguin.
All other songs written and composed by Don Nino.
Recorded in various places : At Prohibited, Paris (#1#11 #27 #28), At Push, Paris (#3, #4, #10), At Les Instants Chavirés), Montreuil (#2 #5 #6 #7 #9 #10 #11, At Microbe Studios, St Cloud (#16), At Les Taisnières, Lyons-La Forêt (#17 #18 #19 ), all others At Salon de Musique(s), Pantin, France.
