John Cale & Terry Riley: Church Of Anthrax

Mini-masterpiece from the Chas ‘n’ Dave of the avant-garde.

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A full feature on minimalist auteur Terry Riley is long overdue in this esteemed digest, and as

A fractious exercise in Cale extracting the funk from Riley’s circular synth/sax drones – and succeeding – finds Miles Davis, Can and Pierre Henry in the mix of the title track’s skewed groove, and on the piano-driven The Hall Of Mirrors In The Palace Of Versailles. On what was side two, The Soul Of Patrick Lee clears the static with some sweet folk-pop much more in line with Cale’s solo debut Vintage Violence. Ides Of March then clatters into earshot like a Vince Guaraldi Peanuts warm-up. Still plumbing a Blue Note depth but with an almost Chas ‘n’ Dave jauntiness that tickles the funnybone Les Dawson could reach, the last furrow is The Protégé, a rockier, three-minute reprise of Ides…, but with equal hypnotic prowess. Unlike its foreboding title, Church Of Anthrax brought colours from Riley’s Rainbow and sunshine from the Underground. They fell out over Cale’s painstaking mixing regime, but this survives as a one-off mini masterpiece

Jo Kendall

Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer who joined Kerrang! in 1999 and then the dark side – Prog – a decade later as Deputy Editor. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!) and asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit. Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London and can be occasionally heard polluting the BBC Radio airwaves as a pop and rock pundit. Steven Wilson still owes her £3, which he borrowed to pay for parking before a King Crimson show in Aylesbury.