John Cale "Blackacetate" (Astralwerks)
By Trey Perkins
Monday. Jan 09, 12:58 AM
A dark knight of rock and roll.

After one solid week of listening to nothing but John Cale’s latest release, I’ve come to the conclusion that the man is a black knight of rock and roll. He rocks as hard and as steady as any solid Rolling Stones jam, but there is something mischievous, ominous, and dark going on in that head of his. Do a Google image search of John Cale, and it will produce an image of a strange individual: think David Bowie, but even more spaced out and otherworldly, and definitely more gritty (if that’s possible). Cale might not be the blonde pretty boy that Bowie is, but he certainly looks as though he’s seen some strange shit in his time. What I find compelling and amazing about Blackacetate is that the album sounds as though it’s been moving through the substrate of rock history, absorbing many different facets of the past 40 years. Keep in mind that the sounds exist in the substrate: they are underground and ultimately function as a black, dark antithesis to the happy, bright, and normal stylings of rock/pop. Truly, it is an inventive listen, even if one may accuse Cale of regurgitating all that he’s been and done.

Here’s a little rock history: for those of you who don’t know Cale, he is an extremely educated and rigorously intelligent musician. But he’s also been part of rock and roll’s most productive singularity. That historical moment of which I speak is The Velvet Underground. Cale joined the band and added his viola and voice to the band’s initial line-up. With Cale’s viola, the Velvets weren’t simply a proto garage/punk outfit that stroked Andy Warhol’s ego, they had a tonality all their own. Whether you love them or hate them, no one bought The Velvet Undergound’s music while they were together, yet they’ve single-handedly influenced every musical form since their break up in the early ‘70s. From glam, punk, garage, to grunge, even the most inclined student of rock music would be strained to find an artist that hasn’t been informed by The Velvet Underground. Hell, the Velvets were living the DIY mentality way before the phrase even entered our vocabulary. When the pop-music listening world waited with baited breath for the next recording from The Beatles, the Stones, or any other mainstream artist of the time, Cale, Lou Reed and company were laying the groundwork for much of the mentality embedded in forms of modern indie. Since his departure from The Velvet Underground, Cale has worked with a veritable potpourri of influential artists: from Eno, Patti Smith, The Stooges, to The Modern Lovers. In addition, he’s released several notable solo albums, starting with 1970’s Vintage Violence. Even now, Cale seems completely enmeshed in the “under-the-radar-but-so-goddamned-unbelievably-cool” attitude.

Blackacetate opens with two hard rocking songs complete with roadhouse-blues tinged guitars. However, they aren’t standard Rolling Stones raucous riffage songs: they are quite unconventional and unlikely rockers. There is a spacey ambience in them, much like any track off of Bowie and Eno’s collaboration “Heroes”. Both albums contain a number of songs that might as well be bluesy rockers (see “Joe the Lion”), but there’s an extra echo and a little bit of reverb added to the mix, giving a laid back and spacey touch to the music. Furthermore, the bass playing on Blackacetate really gives these songs a groove that is unprecedented in Cale’s earlier work. The band Cale’s working with now definitely swings like a door, and I credit it to his bass player. “Outtathebag” possesses a tremendous groove, and the “bass-balls” effect really adds to the overall weirdness Cale sets out to achieve. One thing is clear: no matter where Cale takes his music, the imprint of The Velvet Undergound will always color his output, even in the digital age of ProTools. Aside from the digital effects and programmed percussion on a track like “Brotherman,” it sounds as though it could be a follow up to his spoken word/narrative “The Gift,” which appeared on 1968’s White Light/White Heat. However, Cale is now 63, and his age tinges his voice. So when the track opens with Cale slithering out the words “I write reams of this shit everyday / I’m not the only one either!”, his vocals possess a Vincent Price-mad scientist quality, and it makes “Brotherman” an undeniable treat of a listen, even if it might strike some as complete art-fag trash. While he barks out, a rap, falsetto harmonies, synthesized noise, and crunchy guitars chunk about under him, demonstrating his unflinching ability to experiment with the rock genre.

At some point, however, it seems that one could charge Cale with slipping into blatant cliché, both musically and lyrically. Of course you’d expect a song entitled “Flood” to be a narrative about a natural disaster occurring somewhere in Mississippi (even though the track is pretty goddamned well arranged). On “Perfect,” we find a basic I-V-IV garage romp, with Cale slithering out vocals about a lover that he can’t stand to be without. Even though he’s not perfect, she somehow is, and for Cale, she is undesirable. Some may say that it’s awkward for a man who’s 63 to rock out in such a way. With bands like Jefferson Starship, the detractors have every right to be concerned over such Jurassic rock. I, however, disagree: there’s a tongue-in-cheek quality to the song, and even if it is simplistic, it still rocks pretty damn hard. I think Cale is well aware of his age, and so the song, to me, has a farcical quality to it. It’s like he sings in the end: “It’s a different kind of love.” All in all, the album might not garner Cale with new fans – and that’s not a bad thing – but it’s an entertaining listen, evincing an artist who demonstrates an openness to the here and now, while wistfully reminiscent about his historic past.
www.john-cale.com
www.astralwerks.com

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Trey Perkins

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