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Fact #148405

When:

Short story:

John Cale releases his third solo album, Paris 1919, on Reprise Records in the USA.

Full article:

PARIS 1919 - JOHN CALE
by Johnny Black

Clasically-trained and inclined towards the avant-garde, Cale’s first three solo albums after leaving the Velvet Underground explored the fairly predictable territory of angry rock and minimalism, but this fourth offering, with its heavily orchestrated introspective musings on religion, ghosts and the English class system, came as a bolt from the blue.

Recorded in Los Angeles, largely at Sunset Sound, with the members of Little Feat acting as his backing band, Paris 1919 was the first time Cale had used a producer, Chris Thomas, other than himself. It was a smart decision, because although Cale wearied of endless re-takes of each song, Thomas had the patience to spend long nights in the studio choosing the best takes and enhancing the sound.

Cale’s subtle arrangements for the University College Of Los Angeles Orchestra, often adding layers of harmony rather than melodies, give tracks like Hanky Panky Nohow a sympathetically textured ambience that simply doesn’t exist in any other rock album of the era. Songs like The Endless Plain Of Fortune, although pinned down by solid drums, seem to drift on currents of sound.

Cale’s voice, as always, is an uncertain instrument, but reservations about his singing ability are swept away in the face of inscrutable lines like, “If the sacheting of gentlemen gives you grievance now and then, what’s needed is the memory of planning lakes”. Listeners may never work out exactly what that means but, unlike most wilfully contrived and obscure lyrics, there’s a feeling that they definitely do mean something.


(Source : Johnny Black, first published in the book Albums by Backbeat Books, 2007)