It would be a fair question to ask what an 82-year-old man has to say in today's music market. It's a dying art, this rock-and-roll stuff. Still, given the man in question, I'd venture that there's a lot any artist working in any medium could learn from John Cale. I don't need to recite his CV for even a cursory awareness of it reveals why we are here to hear what he has to offer in 2024. And what he has to offer is sublime.
POPtical Illusion serves up material that is as supple and warm as anything the Velvet Undergrond legend's ever offered. For those who recall stuff like "The Soul of Carmen Miranda" and "I Keep a Close Watch", there will be a lot that resonates here on this new record. "Calling You Out" is plaintive and haunting, a bed of synth-waves keeping this above the surface of a roiling sea, while the lyrical "Edge of Reason" marries Cale's honeyed vocals with buzzing electronic textures and a percolating undercurrent to great effect. While this is a record that maintains a certain stateliness, that realization does nothing to diminish the emotional power of the material. "How We See the Light" seems to find Cale coming to terms with relationships and how they end, but also, quite possibly, aging, even as he does it in his own fashion, and from an angle all his own:
"Can I close another chapter
In the way we run our lives
More decisive in the future
Or deliberate in the end"
Lyrics like those point to questions of how we live our lives, how we approach art, and how we respond to it as much as they do "getting older" it seems to me. I think a listener could trace a line from "Work" from Songs for Drella to this number, and I'm not just saying that because the keyboard motif here in "How We See the Light" seems a slowed-down version of the earlier's song's similar one.
POPtical Illusion in its second half reminds us that Cale is still spry enough to surprise. "Shark-Shark" clatters around the room like a mechanical toy. If you removed John's vocals, this would still be a compelling iteration of a form of pop at once complex and playful. The ominous "Funkball the Brewster" marries symphonic sweep (by keyboards and samples) with Cale's rich vocals to fine effect.
There's something about Cale's voice that adds weight to any lyric, and that poetic quality -- that Welshness? -- makes this material breathe with life. That said, POPtical Illusion works very well on the strength of John's musicianship and inventiveness. Closer "There is No River", for example, is positively breathtaking. This one finds Cale using a minimalist piano figure and embellishing it with samples, vocals, and synth-work. The tune haunts, and it is positively orchestral in its own modest way. Chamber rock maybe, but leave it to an 82-year-old Welsh legend to make one of his most human records in ages with a wealth of electronics.
POPtical Illusion by John Cale is out on Friday via Domino.
[Photo: Madeline McManus]