Send "John Cale " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 "Say hello to the future, and goodbye to the past," declares John Cale on the first song on his new EP, and no doubt, he's earned the right to sing that line. For a good chunk of the past two years, Cale has been touring a front-to-back performance of his 1973 chamber-pop masterpiece Paris 1919, the most enduring and beloved album amid his sprawling post-Velvet Underground discography. Naturally, the process of revisiting a specific body of work night after night can't help but exert some influence on an artist's subsequent move, and Cale is no different. However, in the case of the Extra Playful EP-- Cale's first release in six years, and a teaser for a new full-length coming in 2012-- the Paris 1919 revival has seemingly inspired him not to revisit that album's orchestrated elegance, but to take a reactionary leap into the opposite direction, to further explore the deconstructed electronic productions and mechanized power pop heard on 2005's Black Acetate.From an artist who's always evinced an adventurous spirit and sense of humor (however dry and dark it may be), the title Extra Playful is to be received as both a promise and a threat. The ideal here is a sort of absurdist, avant-garde take on adult-contemporary pop, feeding straight-forward, mid-tempo rock'n'roll songs and romantic balladry through synthetic sonics and alien frequencies. From the mellotron-like psychedelic textures that lend the endearing serenade "Whadda Ya Mean By That?" a woozy, weightless feel, to the Scary Monsters-esque freakazoid guitar squall that rips through the android funk of "Perfection", Cale takes considerable glee in destabilizing his songs' structures. To wit, the Francophone-sung trip-hop flashback "Pile a L'heure" would sound right at home on some circa-1996 chill-out compilation, were it not for an unnerving background drone that provides a distant echo of Cale's viola-scraping on the Velvets' "Venus in Furs"....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| There's a line on John Cale's latest EP Extra Playful that seems to sum up his attitude to music, "You were hopefully looking for perfection". It's something he seems to have been searching for during his half a decade as a recording artist, from his classical training to his more experimental rock. As he approaches the elder statesman age of 70, he certainly isn't calling off the search. Unlike some of his contemporaries who rely on their glory years to sustain their careers, Cale has instead continued to push forward, producing some of his best solo work in the last decade. Extra Playful follows that trend; in the space of just 5 tracks he turns his attention to a variety of different styles, thereby delivering an ideal appetiser for a full-length album in 2012. 'Catastrofuk' is a suitably angry introduction with its fuzzy bass and effects laden guitars. It's a rallying cry against commercialism with one eye on the future, "say hello to the future and goodbye to the past, hurry up through the present and get there fast". Cale also utilises his trademark piano sparingly here, instead using studio trickery and backing vocal loops to flesh out the track....full text |
| Bbc |
| John Cale’s new five-track EP conceives and executes more great ideas in 21 minutes than most musicians do in 10 years. It’s art-rock, but energised; fun, smart and sexy. It recalls a time when nearly all rock had to exhibit brain and heart as well as muscle, before the Oasis era of regression – and yet remains hotly topical and glisteningly modern. It’s the work of a master. Domino must be rubbing their hands with glee at such a coup. For any children reading, Cale was, along with Lou Reed, the fulcrum of The Velvet Underground, before engaging on a durable career as solo artist, collaborator and producer of landmark albums. His vivid production here – a perfect balance of surprises and moving the ship forward – merits wonder. It seems almost unfair, then, that his voice, songs, lyrics and musicianship have hit new peaks. Reed may have taken an inspired leap with Metallica, but his old ally reasserts that you underestimate a Welshman at your peril. Don’t be misled by the relative simplicity of the opener, Catastrofuk, in which Cale’s stentorian vocal fillets a chugging Greenwich Village guitar-riff to emerge with something sounding very Interpol. Whaddya Mean by That? follows; a pulse of melancholy. "Take me to your bedroom / Lay me on the floor," he croons, evoking both the kinkiness of Venus in Furs and the self-deprecation of Leonard Cohen. Cohen comes to mind again in Hey Ray (no relation to Sister Ray), archly comic industrial dub with timely shouts of "They’re having a riot" and "The Russians are coming". There are hints of Iggy’s The Idiot in the arrangements, and the mash-up of 80s electro-funk and Kraut-drone which platforms the sinewy Perfection also tips the hat to Bowie-Berlin....full text |
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