John Cale at The 13th Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival

Musician, composer, singer-songwriter, record producer and founding member of experimental rock icons The Velvet Underground, John Cale releases a new album set for a release on Domino imprint, Double Six, in early May. Though best known for his work in rock music, Cale has worked in various genres including drone and classical. Since departing from The Velvet Underground in 1968 he has released approximately 30 albums. Of his solo work, Cale is perhaps best known for his album Paris 1919, and his cover version of Leonard Cohen's ‘Hallelujah’, plus his mid-1970s Island Records trilogy of albums: Fear, Slow Dazzle, and Helen of Troy.

Cale has produced and collaborated with Lou Reed, Nico, La Monte Young, John Cage, Terry Riley, Nick Drake, Kevin Ayers, Brian Eno, Patti Smith, The Stooges, The Modern Lovers, Manic Street Preachers, Marc Almond, Happy Mondays, LCD Soundsystem and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Of his new album Cale told UNCUT Magazine: “I have a little studio in LA and most of the album was done there. Some of the songs I wrote on bass. There’s one called ‘Vampire Café’ and there are some very sloppy lurching grooves in there. I remember first hearing Dr John doingGris-Grisand then seeing them in LA in the late ‘60s and they were scary as hell. There were girls with feathers in their hair and a gigantic bass player in a boiler suit. It was very funky and some of that I’ve been trying to get to – that low-down funk. My drummer, Michael Jerome, is very good. A lot of these things sound like machines, but they’re really not. At some points I’ve got two floor toms going on. The grooves are really what I started with, though there’s some lo-fi stuff on there too. One song’s about Japanese anime and there’s one about all this nonsense with the press called ‘Scotland Yard’. And one called ‘The Flying Dutchman’, which I wrote on viola. So it’s a real variety. Some songs I wrote on Fender Telecaster, some with bass and some with a bunch of keyboards and put some back-up singers and horns on there. I’ve dressed up the turkey a little bit.”