John Cale — The Academy in Peril (2024 Reissue)
Qobuz reissue review (November 2024)
Even in a career filled with sharp stylistic shifts and avant-garde artfulness, John Cale’s 1972 album The Academy in Perilstands out. Cale’s first two post-Velvet Underground albums (1970’s Vintage Violence and 1971’s Church of Anthrax) showcased his experimental side, blending rock, classical, and minimalism in fresh, new ways, but the sheer unconventionality of The Academy in Peril is truly striking. The album is largely an instrumental exploration, demonstrating Cale’s range as a composer, arranger, and musician while reflecting his growing interest in dissonance, modernist classical music, and abstract soundscapes. Sure, vocals do show up occasionally — like, say, the disembodied voice giving stage directions on “Legs Larry at Television Centre” — and yes, there are some numbers here like “Days of Steam” that seem like they might be shaping up to be a regular pop song, toying with a simple rhythm and a straightforward melodic structure, but even it leans into dissonance thanks to Cale’s treated viola and the disorienting interplay between brass instruments and a … calliope. The Academy in Perilis, in other words, an exercise in expectation-smashing. The title track immediately sets the tone with a haunting and minimalistic piano motif that lets you know this won’t be more Vintage Violence, and, instead would be aiming to make good on the largely failed avant-garde intents of his Terry Riley collaboration Church of Anthrax by formalizing both the compositional approach and the performances. Cale exploded the budget for this record, enlisting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to play on some tracks and spending months finalizing the material in the studio. Thus, whether it’s the highly orchestrated “3 Orchestral Pieces: a) Faust b) The Balance c) Capt. Morgans Lament” — essentially a wordless modern opera — or the meditative, piano-based “The Philospher” — which is as dynamic and dramatic as it is emotionally intense — The Academy in Peril evokes a distinctly modernist approach. Cale draws from the forward-looking sensibility of composers like Webern and Stravinsky, embracing abstraction and unpredictability in the compositions but also a warm, personal element in the performances (the bonus track “Temper” on this new edition is a stunning solo piano piece that perfectly represents that emotional approach). This blending of innovation and emotion makes this largely spare album feel both deeply intimate and archly intellectual, a combination that Cale has always expertly evoked, but never quite so daringly as on Academy.
