The Academy In Peril
Reissue of 1972 solo album by the former Velvet Underground member. Neo-classical art-rock fusion?

The Academy In Peril

John Cale

€ 34,95
  • LP
Label
Domino
Expected release
15 November 2024
PRE-ORDER ITEM: This item will only be shipped to you on or after 15 November 2024. Please note any orders containing pre-order items won't be shipped until all items are available, so please order this separately to avoid delays. Release dates are at the mercy of labels, distributor, and pressing plants and will change constantly.

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Description

John Cale was never very kind to his solo debut, Vintage Violence. When it was released in early 1970, Cale had been out of The Velvet Underground for less than two years. He wanted to prove he could be the songwriter, the person penning the words and melodies behind which a band could work. “I was masked on Vintage Violence,” he wrote much later. “You’re not really seeing the personality.” Indeed, Cale’s personality as a polyglot seemingly interested in everything emerged more and more on his next two solo albums, his only two for Reprise: 1972’s bracing and exploratory classical sojourn, The Academy in Peril, and 1973’s masterclass in anxious but accessible songcraft, Paris 1919. By reissuing both records in tandem, Domino—Cale’s home now for a dozen years—affirms the artistic fearlessness Cale then fostered at the edge of 30, when all of music seemed like one inviting playpen. 

When Cale arrived in Los Angeles from New York in the early ’70s, he was a pinball in the world, his past having bounced him into a now-precarious position. In California, he entered a chaotic new relationship that led to a quick and disastrous marriage, started his new industry gig, and found his West Coast drug of choice, cocaine. Despite its reputation as Reprise’s first classical album, The Academy in Peril indulges that extreme upper energy, bouncing among ambitious ideas with unguarded zeal. Warner Brothers spent $120,000 on The Academy in Peril, and Cale even enlisted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to play on several of its tracks. Still, there is an early punk energy to it all, from idea to execution. Cale wrote most of it in the English studio as he recorded it, attempting to build symphonies on the go and painstakingly overdubbing its mountain of parts alone. Here is Cale, creating his own secret fusion and ignoring the strictures of expectation. 

Tracklist

A

  • 1.The Philosopher04:25
  • 2.Brahms06:55
  • 3.Legs Larry At Television Centre03:35
  • 4.The Academy In Peril06:20

B

  • 1.Intro00:57
  • 2.Days Of Steam01:58
  • 3.3 Orchestral Pieces
  • 4.King Harry04:04
  • 5.John Milton07:54

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