nick nicely – ‘Mike Hall Is Calling’ / ‘Wonderful Day’ new 7” single

nick nicely – psych maverick/genius, Nick is back on FdM, and in epic mood with ‘Mike Hall Is Calling’, including towering choruses and surreal twists, a psychedelic ghost story from the dead, or half-dead – it seems an ‘accident’ on a cliff has led an unquiet spirit to interfere in electronic communications…now the work switchboard is buckling too…

I love how Nick creates his unique psychedelic wall of sound (can you believe he released ‘Hilly Fields’ over 40 years ago?) but I’ll leave it to others far better qualified than me to comment on ‘Mike Hall’
‘Brilliant’, Nick Saloman  
‘Outstanding’, Gideon Coe, BBC 6Music

the single is limited to 300 copies

Nickolas Laurien, known professionally as Nick Nicely, is an English singer-songwriter who records psychedelic and electronic music. He is best known for his 1982 single “Hilly Fields (1892)“. Nicely released only one other record in the early 1980s, the single “D.C.T. Dreams“, before retreating from the music industry. The influence of “Hilly Fields” has been noted on Bevis Frond, Robyn Hitchcock, Robert Wyatt, and XTC‘s psychedelic alter egos the Dukes of Stratosphear, as well as the hypnagogic pop movement of the 2000s.

Nicely was born in Greenland during a transatlantic flight layover and grew up in Hitchin, a town near London. In the late 1980s, he became involved with the burgeoning acid house and rave scene in the UK. With collaborator Gavin Mills, the duo produced a number of house tracks in the early 1990s under the names Psychotropic, Freefall and Airtight and enjoyed some chart success. Following years of negotiations, a compilation of Nicely’s two singles and unreleased tracks recorded between 1978 and 2004, titled Psychotropia, was released in 2004. Since then, he has released five albums of new material: Lysergia (2011), Space of a Second (2014), Sleep Safari (2017), Secret Life Of Chance (2022), Afterworld (2023).