John Cale: I wince at each Velvet Underground reissue

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:56:00 +0000

John Cale is a pioneer of the rock viola, which may not have the cachet of the guitar but can generate a particularly unsettling, almost hallucinatory drone. On the first two Velvet Underground albums — especially songs like “Venus in Furs” and “Heroin” — Cale evoked an intensely narcotic buzz that proved as distinct as Nico’s delectably off-key vocals and as menacing as Lou Reed’s deadpan jive. It’s the precursor to the ambient noise in a David Lynch film: stark, low, uncanny and deeply, almost existentially disquieting.

The viola has droned throughout Cale’s 40-year career, subtly threading his large and disparate oeuvre together. After he left the Underground in 1968 — or was thrown out by a paranoid Reed, depending on whom you believe — Cale embarked on a long and unpredictable solo career full of undeniable peaks (1973’s “Paris 1919”) as well as odd asides and one-offs (“June 1, 1974,” with Mike Oldfield and Robert Wyatt). With each record he has fashioned some new combination of straightforward pop and heady sound design, as if torn between his urges toward the accessible and the avant-garde. That he can produce something as immediately engaging as “Paris 1919” is offset by his ability to explore minimalist composition, such as “Church of Anthrax,” his 1973 collaboration with Terry Wiley.

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John Cale: I wince at each Velvet Underground reissue