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John Cale - Music for a New Society Audio CD

A fair review of the John Cale "Music for a New Society" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all John Cale reviews here, or go back to the John Cale tabs.

John Cale Band: John Cale
Title: Music for a New Society
Rating:
Release Date: 1994-05-03
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Taking Your Life in Your Hands 2: Thoughtless Kind 3: Sanities 4: If You Were Still Around 5: (I Keep A) Close Watch 6: Broken Bird 7: Chinese Envoy 8: Changes Made 9: Damn Life 10: Risé, Sam and Rimsky-Korsakov 11: In the Library of Force

Buy Far one of...If Not His Best. Cale's Equivelant 2 Lou's Berlin
It is expensive on CD, but I bought it on Cd and I even own already on Cassette and Vinyl. This is by far Cale's most imaginitve rock album full of very sentimental and emotional tracks. If you like John Cale just a little bit you will still be blown away buy his originality on this album. By far one of his best top 3. Next to Paris and Vintage Violence and Church of Anthrax.


This Is The New Society

Cale's music has rarely been accessible in a commercial sense, and this recording seems to represent the extreme in that concept. This is still, quite simply, a stunning, brave record, twenty years after its release. Madness and violence are main themes in this record, but from the opening electric piano riff of "Taking Your Life In Your Hands", it becomes apparent that the route to Cale's no-man's-land is not going to be what one would expect. 'Traditional' rock arrangements are eschewed in favor of disjointed sonic treatments. Panoramas of depression, loss, hopelessness, and suicide sit side-by-side with poignant passages of sheer beauty and forlorn longing, as if to tell us that in our most hellish moments we can still attain a state of grace. That Cale trusts us as his fans to brave this ride through this particular darkness of his vision stongly suggests that we can indeed understand and appreciate our new society only after we weather the storms of its history. And the world is still a better place because we have people like John Cale to express those emotions that elude our conscious interpretation. If you posess an adventurous musical spirit, and are confident enough within your soul to withstand a journey through the darkest corners of life, this record is for you. I recommend it thoroughly. It is a record you will never forget.


Not Cale's best by far
Some of the songs are evocative, but they remain elusive and the album seems inchoate or incoherent. After reading so many laudatory reviews of this album and being an avid Cale fan, I decided to purchase the album. As far as being hailed as Cale's most experimental album, perhaps it is his most experimental lyrical album (cf. the much more avant-garde 'Church of Anthrax' and 'The Academy in Peril'). 'Sanities' is another exploration of madness by Cale, but is not as effective a spoken word piece as 'The Jeweller' nor is its musical accompaniment particularly felicitous. This more sober Cale prefers to tell rather than show the horrors of loneliness, nihilism, and insanity. The reworking of 'I Keep a Close Watch' is an improvement over the version on 'Slow Dazzle,' but a comparable live rendition is available on "Fragments of a Rainy Season" (as is a superior acoustic version of 'Thoughtless Kind'). All in all, this album is hardly satisfying, perhaps even less satisfying than the other overrated album in the Cale oeuvre, "Vintage Violence". Yet, as it is with all music, each to his own taste, and the only sure test of liking an album is to listen to it oneself and not to rely on second-hand opinions.


Scary, realistic music
Your stomach gnarls, the hall echoes and your thoughts float aimlessly. Listening to this is like being alone in a world without meaning. When the melody rears its head it does so from somewhere far away, as if coming from somewhere beyond or beneath the ambience of music. Glimpses of well known melodies (from other people's music) take strange form, like a twisted memory, before disappearing again. Like reverie, stream-of-consciousness, you seem to enter J. Cale's head and go along with his vague longings, yearnings for something gone. This is like nothing I have ever heard. I don't know what it does, but it succeeds masterfully. Very experimental, but at the same time unsettlingly personal. Unique indeed.


Introspective, maybe?
The music isn't truly depressing either -only the elegiac "If You Were Still Around" is believable, "Damn Life" brings me the feeling of having the E-Street-Band around and "Changes Made" sounds like a remainder of the Island albums-, but it still takes some time to think if more suitable lyrics could be found for it. Even though John Cale achieves here one of his best efforts, the album (as many others of his) doesn't give the feeling of being really complete -the recitation with atmospheric background in "Sanities" and "Sam, Rise and Rimsky-Korsakov" {is it really Rimsky-Korsakov?}, the remake of an old track ("Close Watch") and the copping of three classical themes at the three last pieces (one each) spoil some very brilliant moments ("Take Your Life In Your Hands" and "Broken Bird" have a beautifully warm mood, "Chinese Envoy" seems as if it had been composed for a chamber music group and "Thoughtless Kind" sounds indeed sarcastic). To sum up, it changes from superb to meandering, from delicate to vulgar -it has nice material, but it is quite difficult to rate it in an objective way.


You can see a complete list of all John Cale discography, or go back to the John Cale tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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