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Avg: 4.0 (34 ratings)
- Date Released: November 18, 2003
- Genre: Rock/Pop
- Style: Progressive Rock
- Label: Or Music
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We Say...
John Cale has an illustrious resumé: he was a founding member of the Velvet Underground, as well as the producer of landmark albums like the self-titled debuts of both the Stooges and the Modern Lovers, as well as Patti Smith's Horses. He's accumulated far less acclaim for an extensive solo catalogue that hit an early plateau with '70s cult favorites like Vintage Violence and Helen of Troy, and has been wildly inconsistent since, veering between conservatory-style experimentalism and a rock classicism built on observational lyrics and ensemble performance.
Cale brings together both approaches on this surprising 2003 comeback (released a year later in the US) by layering satisfying singer-songwriter fare with playful alt-rock and digitized mischief. This hybrid's success chiefly lies in Cale's inspired choice of co-producer — Nick Franglen of Lemon Jelly, a British electronica duo distinguished by its unusually snarky samples. Franglen welcomes a revitalized Cale into the Protools pop world on beat-driven tracks like "Letter From Abroad" much in the same way Brian Eno lightened and contemporized his old friend on their Wrong Way Up (1990). Akin to Marianne Faithful's recent work, HoboSapiens' cross-generational collaboration clicks. -
They Say...
John Cale's reentry into the world of pop music is a contentious and accessible one. This is the Welsh iconoclast at his most elegant, energetic, and innovative. HoboSapiens finds Cale using samples as the base of all his tracks and using musicians to fill in his ideas -- ideas that were firmly established melodically, lyrically, and texturally. There are a couple of dozen players here, including guitarists Joe Gore (Tom Waits, PJ Harvey) and Joel Mark, Eno (and his two daughters Darla and Irial), bassist Jeff Eyrich, a small choir of Italian voices, a choral quartet called A Tonal Choir, drummer Marco Giovino, and samples by a host of electro-wizards. But it's not the collaborations that make the recording remarkable, it's the songs. Cale's sense of whimsy is back with a vengeance here. Check the gloriously loopy hook in "Reading My Mind" (one can hear just how deep Cale's influence on David Byrne went), the acoustic rock and irony in "Things," the skittering kit drum and string loops in "Look Horizon," the ethereal keyboard and sample darkness of "Magritte," the dreamy pop expressionism of "Archimedes," and the silly, angular Euro-funk in "Bicycle," with Eno's daughters giggling away. Throughout the 12 tracks on HoboSapiens, Cale's outlook is fantastical, nearly bright, and full of mystery and history, with philosophy, religion, quirkily cultural artifacts, and wry humor all woven together with thoroughly modern post-rock and pop music that is seamless yet full of angles and multidimensional yet full of attitude and grace, with a slippery Euro sheen roughed up by rugged U.K. shagginess. This is easily the best and most provocative recording Cale has made since Honi Soit. It's ironic that the two bravest, most original pop records of 2003 were made by old men: this one and Robert Wyatt's Cuckooland.
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| 01. |  |
Zen |
6:02 |
|
| 02. | |
Reading My Mind |
4:10 |
|
| 03. | |
Things |
3:36 |
|
| 04. | |
Look Horizon |
5:41 |
|
| 05. | |
Magritte |
4:58 |
|
| 06. | |
Archimedes |
4:40 |
|
| 07. | |
Caravan |
6:43 |
|
| 08. | |
Bicycle |
5:05 |
|
| 09. | |
Twilight Zone |
3:48 |
|
| 10. | |
Letter from Abroad |
5:09 |
|
| 11. | |
Things X |
4:49 |
|
| 12. | |
Over Her Head |
5:23 |
|
| 13. | |
Set Me Free (US Bonus Track) |
4:31 |
|
13 Total Tracks, 64:35 Total Length
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Credits
- John Cale - Bass // John Cale - Guitar // John Cale - Arranger // John Cale - Harmonium // John Cale - Keyboards // John Cale - Viola // John Cale - Vocals // John Cale - Vocals (Background) // John Cale - Producer // John Cale - Sampling // John Cale - Viola (Electric) // John Cale - Electric Viola // The Count - Sampling // The Count - Drum Loop // Brian Deck - Engineer // Jeff Eyrich - Bass // Joe Gore - Guitar // Cameron Jenkins - Mixing // Cameron Jenkins - Mixing Engineer // Rick Myers - Art Direction // Rick Myers - Design // Roberto - Voices // Erik Sanko - Dulcimer // Erik Sanko - Bass // Bill Swartz - Drums // John Kurzweg - Guitar // Elizabeth Henreckson Farnum - Voices // Lisa Bielawa - Voices // Ryan Coseboom - Sampling // Joel Mark - Bass // Joel Mark - Guitar // Alba Clemente - Voices // Andy Green - Guitar // Andy Green - Producer // Andy Green - Engineer // Andy Green - Sampling // Lance Doss - Guitar // Lance Doss - Vocals (Background) // Nick Franglen - Producer // Brian Foreman - Bass // Dimitri Tikovoi - Sampling // Mikael "Count" Eldridge - Engineer // Mikael "Count" Eldridge - Sampling // Mikael "Count" Eldridge - Mixing // Mikael "Count" Eldridge - Drum Loop // Mikael "Count" Eldridge - Mixing Engineer // Emil T. Miland - Cello // Eden Cale - Spoken Word // Nita Scott - Executive Producer // Darla Eno - Laughs // Irial Eno - Laughs // Marco Giovino - Percussion // Marco Giovino - Drums // Shelly Harland - Sampling // Jon Shard - Photography // Alain Robbe Grilles - Author
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