STACK March 2016 Issue 71

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M ost musicians in rock culture establish
their sound and reputation over a few
early albums, and consolidate both if
their careers are of any length. The late Lemmy
and Lou Reed for example released albums
which became their hallmarks, and their
personae – wildman Lemmy and pugnacious
Reed – became our enduring image of them.
That said, in each case there were frequently
diminishing returns over albums which you
wouldn't listen to much today. Much as Reed
might have advanced himself as NewYork's
pre-eminent rock'n'roll street poet, there were
more than a few albums which were intolerable
tripe.
However his sparring partner in Velvet
Underground, the classically-trained John Cale,
has had the more musically interesting career.
While Reed broadcast on his own frequency
and seemed never to doubt his own genius,
Cale pushed out into other areas... and early on
it was into production.
Outside of VU, Cale's production credits
include diverse and excellent debut albums
by the Stooges, Patti Smith and The Modern
Lovers; he collaborated with minimalist
composer Terry Riley (Church of Anthrax,
1971) and one-time Dylan fellow traveller Bob
Neuwirth (Last Day on Earth, 1994); wrote
visceral and angry rock'n'roll (Slow Dazzle,
1975) and orchestral work (on Words for the
Dying, 1989).
His album Helen of Troy in 1975 (which
included the lovely first version of Close Watch
which reappeared, differently, on his seminal
Music for a New Society of 1982) was as dark
as Neil Young's Tonight's the Night and never
Graham Reid explores the deep and rewarding music of John Cale.
got released in the US.
When I interviewed him
a decade ago about his
new album blackAcetate
he spoke of how much
he'd learned from
Pharrell's production on
Snoop Dogg's single Drop
It Like It's Hot, and how he
admired Gorillaz.
The open-minded Cale's
career has always been
worth following, and now
he re-presents a powerfully
remastered version of Music for a New Society
and his own beefier and provocative revision
of those songs on the album M:FANS with his
band from his last album (the excellent Shifty
Adventures in Nookie Wood, 2012).
These come as a double CD set, on 12'' vinyl
(with download cards, three unreleased Society-
era tracks also) and as digital downloads.
Music for a New Society – which
unexpectedly opened with three disturbingly
slow pieces and included two co-writes
with playwright Sam Shepard – was mostly
improvised in the studio and reflected both his
poetic/political and avant-garde experimentalist
spirit alongside some residue of the cocaine-
fuelled '70s. It contains some of his most
memorable songs – the piano ballad Close
Watch, Chinese Envoy – but a critic once
said Cale went beyond black and nihilism into
nothingness.
Santies – spoken word with disconcerting
noises behind – confirms that opinion.
The remastered New Society brings up the
more aurally disturbing elements (a nagging
scratch, echoed percussion, weird sonics and
an evil laugh on Thoughtless Kind) and the
whole album sounds more immediate and
present. The outtake of Chinese Envoy is more
raw than the already emotionally bare album
version; the previously unreleased Library of
Force a real test for the faint-hearted.
M: FANS is more than a re-hit of New
Society. It's a complete rethink, and is re-
framed by the death of
Lou Reed. The disturbing
negativity of the original is
reprocessed as rage and
discomfort. It opens with
a challengingly electro-
processed phone call
to his mother mostly in
Welsh where she sings
(originally intended as the
coda to Close Watch on
the original album, but
was removed when she
fell ill). This Prelude sets
up the newly configured
album which follows
up the death and loss theme with a revision/
version of If You Were Still Around .
When John Cale recorded Music for a
New Society his obsession with a holocaust,
political conspiracies and the fragility of life
was prominent. The electrobeat, sometimes
furious M:FANS version – using the same
source material – throws us into an emotionally
dysfunctional present day society full of
electrostatic which threatens to drown out
our essential humanity, the soul of which he
explores again, but differently. Library of Force
is even more disturbing in this incarnation.
The jury will be out on M:FANS for some
time, but it's hard to deny John Cale was the
most innovative and exploratory artist to come
out of Velvet Underground.
For more interviews, overviews and reviews
by Graham Reid see:
Photo by David Reich
Cale's production credits
include diverse and
excellent debut albums by
the Stooges, Patti Smith
and the Modern Lovers
visit MUSIC FEATURE
22 MARCH 2016
MUSIC
THE NEW SOCIETY STARTS HERE…
and it still ain't pretty