John Cale was a founding member of the Velvet Underground, then a year later forced out of the group as the first professional victim of Lou Reed's prodigious temper. He went on to a career as a producer (Nico, the Stooges, the Modern Lovers, Patti Smith's Horses, Jennifer Warnes, Squeeze, the Happy Mondays, Jesus Lizard, the Mediaeval Baebes' Undredtide) and guest musician (with appearances on albums by Nick Drake, Brian Eno, Gordon Gano, the Replacements, Super Furry Animals), as well as a prolific solo career (23 full-length albums since 1970, plus 17 released and 15 unreleased movie soundtracks).
The most consistent thing about Cale's work is its unpredictability; as you might guess by looking at his producer or guest credits; his musical tastes span a wide range of genres, with the result that picking up a new John Cale record can be a little like rolling the dice. 1996's Walking on Locusts was largely straight-ahead country-inflected pop with a few weird exceptions like "Crazy Egypt," but 2003's HoboSapiens is all over the map with its sounds and influences and reflects Cale's fascination with ProTools.
All of which is to say that when I put Cale's latest record blackAcetate into my CD player and then had to double check to be sure that I wasn't listening to Big Star, I wasn't surprised. The lead-off track, "Outta the Bag," features Cale's rarely-heard falsetto over chugging horns and rhythm section, and sounds as though Cale spent a lot of time in Memphis during the session. "
In a Flood" is a slowly smoldering evocation of the late summer Mississippi that sounds as if the early Cowboy Junkies were in the next studio. And "Gravel Drive" is a balladic evocation of domestic loss that is majestic in its sweep. The arrangements on most of the songs are a lot more organic than on the cut-and-paste HoboSapiens: there's even some Prince-inflected funk on "Hush." The common thread stitching the album together is Cale's magnificent Welsh voice.
Not everything works on the album; "Sold-Motel" is a fairly uninspired rocker. "Woman" plays a rhythmic albeit tuneless verse over thin drum loops against a guitar-driven chorus with no real unity between the two parts. "Wasteland" is a frustrating ambient inflected tune that has some promising moments in the arrangement, but doesn't earn the grand climax it builds to at the end. But these are minor quibbles compared to the quality of the other tracks. On balance blackAcetate is a worthy addition to the Cale discography, an album that takes risks that more often than not pay off in spades.
Article comments
1 - Sister Ray
Thanks for the review. I didn't realize he had so many albums (especially all those movie soundtracks).
Black acetate is what old records were made out of, right?
2 - Tim Jarrett
Good question, Sister Ray. I believe that the most common gramophone record material was either vinyl (33 1/3) or shellac (pre-1960s 7" and most 78 RPMs). I think that it's more likely that Cale is referring to photographic film, which was acetate until various other synthetic compounds replaced it in the 1980s. But I'd appreciate corrections by someone with more clue than me.
3 - Sister Ray
Oh, film, not recordings - that puts a whole different spin on the title.
It's too bad he and Reed couldn't resolve their differences, but I guess that train left the station a long time ago.
I have the DVD of the Velvets' reunion tour in my Netflix queue.
4 - Connie Phillips
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