Search - John Cale, Unspecified, Jack Smith :: Cale: New York in the 1960's

John Cale, Unspecified, Jack Smith
Cale: New York in the 1960's
Genres: Alternative Rock, Special Interest, Pop, Rock, Classical

Track Listings (3) - Disc #1
1. Sun Blindness Music, for organ
2. Summer Heat, for guitar
3. The Second Fortress, for vox organ
Track Listings (6) - Disc #2
1. Dream Interpretation, for viola & violin
2. Ex-Cathedra, for vox organ
3. [untitled] for piano - John Cale,
4. Carousel, for synthesizer
5. A Midnight Rain of Green Wrens at the World's Tallest Building, for viola
6. Hot Scoria, for guitar & cimbalom
Track Listings (7) - Disc #3
1. Stainless Steel Gamelan, cembalet & fretless guitar
2. At About This Time Mozart Was Dead And Joseph Conrad Was Sailing the Se
3. Terry's Cha-Cha, for ensemble
4. After The Locust, for electric piano & thunder machine
5. Big Apple Express, for viola, tape & voice
6. Cold Starry Nights, for voice, sarinda & bowed cembalom - John Cale, Unspecified
7. Silent Shadows on Cinemaroc Island, for ensemble - John Cale, Unspecified

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CD Details

All Artists: John Cale, Unspecified, Jack Smith, New York Fire Department
Title: Cale: New York in the 1960's
Members Wishing: 5
Total Copies: 0
Label: Table of Elements
Original Release Date: 1/1/2006
Re-Release Date: 5/9/2006
Album Type: Box set
Genres: Alternative Rock, Special Interest, Pop, Rock, Classical
Styles: Hardcore & Punk, Experimental Music, Progressive, Progressive Rock, Chamber Music
Number of Discs: 3
SwapaCD Credits: 3
UPC: 806501108722

Synopsis

Album Description

John Cale's great credit, both inside and outside The Velvet Underground, was to have found the inoculation dosage that would addict the music industry to sound without alienating one world from the other. But outside the "official" VU there was also an uncut version of the virus, incubated behind the slum walls of the 1960s Lower East Side, and maintained live in the liquid nitrogen of these insolently recorded reel-to-reel audiotapes, recorded and produced by Tony Conrad and now available in this massive Table Of The Elements 3xCD boxed set.

CD Reviews

Dazzling, seminal and prescient

G. HIGGINS | 06/21/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There is little to add to an appraisal of this compendium that Brian Duguid hadn't already said, in his glowing 2001 Wire review of the original three separate CDs included in this (actual wooden) box set. But here goes...

Originality, as a concept, as an example, is borne out by precious few cultural artifacts. The aggressive experimentalism demonstrated by Cale and his peers is without precedent in rock and roll. It is no exaggeration to state that Cale, in these works assimilated and digested all the disparate sources of prior inspiration and influence--European symphonic tradition, serialism, Indian classical raga, American pop and blues, as well as Cageian modernism--and formulated them into stunning new realizations of what pop music could be.

No one outside of this small enclave was making sounds like this, in any genre anywhere else, and no one would until years later. Certain distant echoes surface: Alan Watts's 1962 "This Is It" from California, long called the first psychedlic record, is intriguing but not terribly similar and lacking Cale's feral drive and epic sensibility. Obviously many others were active in experimental jazz and classical forms, but shut off by choice from the world of rock and roll, and cloistered away from pop culture entirely.

These private recordings reflect an inner soundworld of such depth and richness they offer a completely new framework for hearing. One's approach to music is affected irrevocably. The notion of intense listening commences here--with Cale and the contributions of MacLise, Conrad, Jennings and others. After 45 years, the tapes of "Stainless Steel Gamelan" (a four-handed hammering/arpeggio of an electric guitar) or "Hot Scoria" (an enveloping, frenzied wash of sound) invite awe. The keyboard drones of "Sun Blindness Music" and "The Second Fortress" retain a mesmerizing quality of both the ancient past and distant future. Surely among Cale's best work.

"