John Cale
(Picture: handout)At 80, John Cale has a lot of life to recall. That includes inventing art rock under Andy Warhol and alongside Lou Reed in The Velvet Underground, producing classic albums by Patti Smith, The Stooges and Nico, keeping his Welshness topped up by working with Manic Street Preachers and Super Furry Animals, releasing collaborative albums with Terry Riley and Brian Eno, and putting out 16 of his own. The 17th, Mercy, ends a rare quiet spell. It’s his first collection of new material in a decade, and includes songs that reminisce about his time spent with both Nico and David Bowie.
Otherwise, there’s nothing backward-looking about 12 songs that twist in all manner of directions across more than 70 minutes. Still best known (in instrumental terms) as a viola player, here he trades in electronic textures, drones and blips, layering sounds in a way that best rewards the owner of expensive headphones. A song with the memorable title Marilyn Monroe’s Legs (Beauty Elsewhere) spends two minutes hissing and scratching, and blipping like a hospital monitor, before Cale’s languid voice and a solid beat finally arrive.
