JOHN CALE - MERCY
At eighty years of age, John Cale is truly an artistic veteran in a career spanning seven decades as both multi-instrumentalist and producer. The list of those to whom he has had the pleasure (or displeasure) of working with range from Patti Smith to The Modern Lovers. Even The Happy Mondays turned to Cale to produce their debut album Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People. Now with his seventeenth individual release, there is an appreciation for his longevity, even if it goes somewhat under the radar to a younger generation not familiar with his work.
Cale’s new record, Mercy, is the first album from the Welshman since his abstract rework M:FANS - a contemporary rendition of his 1982 album Music for a New Society. M:FANS was proof enough of Cale’s mastery at evolving through the epochs of popular music and responding to the digital age conquering all aspects of daily life. The transition onto Mercy further cements his place as the granddaddy of the popular avant-garde. And if Cale has demonstrated anything, it is, to be cliched, an example of aging finely. Not like a wine, but more like a 300-year-old Stradivarius viola still capable of holding a drone.
Cale’s fanfare for repetitive drone came from his days as a student of the minimalist avant-garde collective known as the Fluxus collective with members including La Monte Young, John Cage and Terry Riley among its figureheads and his biggest influences. The art of noise is a well-known aspect of Cale’s distinctive approach to music. His early work with The Velvet Underground is full of songs dedicated to this concept: tracks like ‘Venus In Furs’, ‘Heroin’, ‘All Tomorrow's Parties' and ‘ European Son’ wouldn’t have stood the test of the time had it not been for Cale’s experiments with droning underpinning the foundations of what The Velvets came to represent as a musical phenomenon.
Mercy is drone in a different sense, not using repetitive chords, more the conceptual nature of length that is reflected in the album being over an hour and ten minutes in its entirety. The suggestion that drone might be a euphemism for boredom on this record is unfounded, but the lack of variety in these tracks isn't the recipe for a comfortable listen, then again, Cale doesn’t do comfort. The gloomy mood is captivated in the title track and the eerie ‘NOISE OF YOU’ where Cale’s sonorous voice is a recital of a lost love to a backdrop of contemporary electronica and snippets of hip-hop. There is a striking contrast in the subtlety of instrumentation on ‘NOISE OF YOU’ to Cale’s voice that works well and gives the track a depth that Cale has mastered throughout his career in terms of vocal delivery.
In ‘STORY OF BLOOD’, Cale channels the same depth and intimacy. This time dealing with the themes of love, family and the soul: “It starts in the heart / It moves all around / Wakes you in the morning / And brings you down.”
This deeply moving aspect is layered with such fine detail and warmth, giving the album real gravitas and making it stand from the crowd. Another outstanding point is the collective of musicians on the record. ‘MARILYN MONROE'S LEGS’ features the established electronic artist Actress. Weyes Blood features on the previously mentioned ‘STORY OF BLOOD’. The noughties go-to for psychedelic indie pop, Animal Collective feature on ‘EVERLASTING DAYS’. The most interesting collaboration, however, is with South London anarchists Fat White Family on ‘THE LEGAL STATUS OF ICE’ an epic seven-and half minute myriad through an electronic wilderness, consisting of brazen vocals and percussive backbeat echoing Joy Division's Closer in its heartbeat-like pulse that gives a new lease of life.
This album not only oozes the experimental spiderweb crafted by Cale over the past seven decades, but it surprisingly creates a shrine to his artistic life. At eighty, it might be flippant to suggest that Cale is reaching the end of his artistic life span, that might lead people to think, how long can the show actually go on for someone so eclectic in their artistic trajectory?
But as albums from senior artists have shown (Scott Walker’s Bisch Bosch and Lou Reed’s Metallica collaboration LuLu spring to mind) is that their experimentation comes with an anticipation for the unexpected. John Cale delivers an album that triumphs in the unexpected and to an astounding effect that enshrines his artistic ability.
Lewis Oxley
★★★★☆