Klaus Nomi Nomi

Klaus Nomi's Nomi on 4LP Box Set: Contains the Studio Albums Klaus Nomi, Simple Man, the Live Album In Concert and the Collection Encore...

Bavarian born Klaus Sperber emigrated to New York City in 1972, and soon became a staple in the East Village art scene, adopting the new last name of Nomi (fashioned after the popular science magazine Omni). After working on a production with Kristian Hoffman, whose band Mumps were playing Max’s Kansas City and CBGB, the two began working together—with Hoffman writing originals and picking cover versions of popular songs that would showcase Nomi’s multi-octave vocal range.

David Bowie hired Nomi as one his background singers for a 1979 performance on Saturday Night Live, and the exposure caught the eyes and ears of Bowie’s label, RCA. Soon Kristian and Klaus began recording Nomi’s debut album. Klaus Nomi appeared in 1981 featuring covers of Lou Christie’s “Lightning Strikes,” Leslie Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” and Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Samson And Delilah (Aria),” plus originals from Hoffman including “Nomi Song” and “Total Eclipse” (memorably performed in the 1981 film Urgh! A Music War).

Simple Man appeared the following year, featuring Hoffman’s title track and covers of Doris Troy’s “Just One Look” and “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead from The Wizard Of Oz—plus songs from renaissance composers John Dowland and Henry Purcell. It would sadly be Nomi’s last album of original material, following his AIDS-related death in 1983. Encore... was released posthumously, collecting tracks from the first two albums, the Urgh! performance of “Total Eclipse,” and three previously unissued tracks. In Concert (recorded at NYC’s Hurrah club in 1979) arrived in 1986, containing Nomi’s version of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

All four albums are now available together, packaged in a slipcase with the iconic Nomi logo, at a very special price.