Great chemistry can be volatile. When the Velvet Underground’s resident art-rock modernist John Cale teamed up with avant-classical minimalist Terry Riley in New York in 1969, their short-lived joint venture ended on a sour note with Riley abruptly leaving the project.
Church Of Anthrax was recorded before Cale’s solo debut Vintage Violence, but only released afterwards, in 1971. It contains just five tracks, but the two stand-outs are both extended, semi-improvised jams that push the 10-minute barrier. Building from soft ambient drones to intricate jazz-rock keyboard ripples, The Hall Of Mirrors In The Palace Of Versailles could sit comfortably on Riley’s seminal 1969 album A Rainbow In Curved Air, while the mighty Ides Of March sounds like Steve Reich and Thelonius Monk reinventing ragtime boogie-woogie as a kinetic contact sport.
The most incongruous inclusion is Cale’s The Soul Of Patrick Lee, a handsome but conventional folk-rock ballad featuring songwriter Adam Miller. But history has turned this album from scrappy footnote to minor milestone, hinting at emerging currents in experimental music, from Krautrock to prog, jazz fusion to Tubular Bells.
