Dammit, I'm going to finish at least one album here. Even if it means slogging through this crap. We'll never know why Cale felt the need to mess up a perfectly listenable (if at times rather unfocused and over-long) instrumental album by throwing on this Procol Harum-lite drivel. Don't look for that sort of penetrating insight here!
What I can do is point out, as anyone with ears could tell you, that getting this Adam Miller character to sing a Vintage Violence-style miniature was a bad idea. The lyrics to "The Soul of Patrick Lee" aren't awful - bloated and purple, I suppose, but maybe with a little Welsh tongue-roll it would be palatable. But the generic psychedelic pop vocal is so oily and bland. Not that Cale is your Dylan or your Young or your Lennon or your Cash, but his vocals aren't greasy.
The tune isn't terrible, the hilariously overloaded arrangement is entertaining, and the song is actually not offensive, but the vocal I cannot forgive. On an album of long-winded pseudo-prog, the 2m50s "Patrick Lee" is somewhat improbably the Church of Anthrax track that most overstays its welcome.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Soul of Patrick Leeeeeeeeee
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Ides of March
LADIES AN GENNLEMEN, TONIGHT YUH'LL WITNESS A BOUT FOR DA AGES. IN DIS CAWNA, SOMEWHERE OVER A RAINBOW, TERRY RILEY! AN IN DIS CAWNA, DA WELSH KID, JOHN CALE! NOW BOYS, LET'S HAVE A CLEAN ONE - FIGHT!
OK, OK, as duels go, this one isn't really that aggressive. Cale and Riley face off on piano, true; but Cale's bit serves as the rhythm part, keeping time more reliably than the drums, which lay in the pocket behind the beat and hover at the edges of the stereo picture; Riley's bit (on I believe prepared piano, as there's some weird sitar-like noises that accompany his strikes) provides the "lead" voice, arpeggiations bubbling away as usual. It's the same approach as the two other long-form pieces on Church of Anthrax take, an approach that Riley seems largely responsible for - extreme repetition with a bit of subtle variation. Which isn't to say they sound the same at all; they just use the same techniques.
The first few (or twenty) listens, after the beautiful and expansive intro (which lasts all of seven seconds), it sounds more or less the same all eleven minutes through. Eventually, though, especially with repeated listens to the track, you start to discern a structure:
- Riley drops out momentarily at two minutes before coming back with a more considered and assured lead part
- he returns to the bubbling and it starts to slow down around the three minute mark
- speeds up considerably a minute later
- softens and recapitulates the beginning after seven minutes as Cale takes his part slightly out of key
- slows down and flexes its muscles just after nine minutes in the coda.
The drums (which seem to start in a syncopated parody of a march, perhaps giving the piece a punny title? or maybe it was just recorded today) sound interesting at first, but over time irritate and distract from the interesting piano dialogue more than they contribute anything. I'd like the piece much more without, I think. So it goes.
[Believe it or not, Church of Anthrax is getting an international rerelease - including its North American CD debut - in a month or so, so you'll finally be able to hear this *ahem* gem. It's not my first preference for a rerelease (in fact, it's one of my last), but those with a high tolerance for repetition and irritating noises are advised to check it out. I can't be the only one... right?] More...
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles
The collaboration between Cale and Terry Riley, on the other hand, was a short and apparently unhappy one. (Riley's statement on the album: "Yes! Church of Anthrax! [half-mirthful, half-exasperated laughter]"). It's not a fruitless collaboration, though - even if Riley felt that Cale commandeered the sessions, their respective styles did merge and more or less complement each other.
"The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles." Of all Cale's discarded pretentious high-art tics I miss the bizarre titles the most. The title isn't entirely inappropriate for this highly repetitious and recursive piano and sax voyage. Cale bangs away at a few chords on the piano (much faster than usual for his "classical" incarnation!), Riley plays undulating streams of sax akin (so they say) to A Rainbow in Curved Air. There are some special effects with stereo - sax flowing from left to right, echoes of the right sax in the left channel, etc.
There's a moment almost three minutes in which they change key, and it sounds like they've turned the boat out to sea. Similar picturesque developments keep the piece interesting almost all the way to the end, but the track outstays its welcome near the five-minute mark when the stereo panning of saxes gets a little overheated and the piano work lingers too long in the same vein. The ending is beautiful, though.
In all, it's a striking listen but not the most effective thing on the album. There's potential here that just wasn't realized.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Church of Anthrax
It's rare that a John Cale composition evokes Kraftwerk, but the title track of 1971's collaboration with Terry Riley, Church of Anthrax, achieves just that.
Sounding for all the world like Ruckzuck's overly shrill little cousin, "Church of Anthrax" piles on just a few too many instruments for the static nature of its main modal progressions. It's a fun listen, but the high-pitched organ irritates and distracts from the clever and brawny exchange going between the bass and... er, prepared piano? or horns, or something. (It's a strange sound, but a good one.) The piece's component parts drift further and further from one another as the song goes on, and don't really mesh again until halfway through. That's four and a half minutes. Once they mesh, they do nothing much in particular for the next two and a half minutes. It's a pleasant nothing much, but such things only go so far. A low drone comes in at the seven minute mark and swells, adding haunting brass, while everything else fades, and the song finally falls apart. It's a satisfying ending.
What's cool is that Terry Riley's playing the organ here, so I can't blame Cale for the worst bits.
Its flaws aside, it's quite odd to hear a Krautrock piece by John Cale. The "Krauts" had been working for a while at that point, so it wasn't all that original, but it's surprising anyway. He never did come close to this style again. It's a shame: there are some good ideas here, and it appears many of them were his. I wouldn't sacrifice any of his Seventies albums for the great lost Cale prog-rock album (OK, maybe this one), but I'd be interested to hear it.
