Graham Reid | | 1 min read
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes as a double album in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics. No download code unfortunately.
Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .
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John Cale's remarkable career began in avant-garde classical music and, in the 55 years since his tenure in the Velvet Underground, has included venomously nihilistic rock, musical settings of Dylan Thomas poems, production (debut albums for Patti Smith, the Stooges and Modern Lovers, for one-time VU singer Nico), funk and hip-hop beats, minimalism, orchestral work, film scores and more.
Few could therefore predict the direction of Mercy, his first album of new material since 2012's Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood.
Like fellow Welshmen Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins, 80-year old Cale has a distinctive voice which brings resonant gravitas to this lyrically weighty album.
With guests Animal Collective, Fat White Family, electronic duo Sylvan Esso and others half his age, Cale settles into a cinematically wide but quiet consideration of his life and this troubled world. Not raging against the dying of the light but considering it with something like reluctant acceptance.
There are emotionally cool ambient electro-soundscapes on the weightless Marilyn Monroe's Legs (Beauty Everywhere) and the farewell feeling of Noise of You: “Bells ring out, the snow falls, the choir is finishing its song. Your footsteps on the stairs, meet at the River House to say goodbye”.
On the lyrically economic Story of Blood with singer Weyes Blood you are reminded he has been a student of Zen: “Sinking in the sand, watching the rain come pouring down on the other side of life”.
There's a mood of the endgame too: “The grandeur that was Europe is sinking in the mud” on Time Stands Still with Sylvan Esso, and something more personal on Moonstruck (Nico's Song):“I have come to make my peace . . so afraid of your shadow following close behind” he sings to his former friend who died in 1988.
John Cale opens his soul on Mercy.
The title track (a Bowie-like stroll with California-based electronica artist Laurel Halo) encapsulates this muted and reflective album: “Days and days were spent in anger, nights were filled with lust . . . please have mercy on me. Lift me up, lift me up”.
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Elsewhere has a considerable amount of John Cale (post-Velvets) including an interview, biography review and articles about his albums. Start here.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here.
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