Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Decade

The slab of noise generously titled "Decade" was allegedly recorded on December 31, 1979. Though guitarist Richie Fliegler denies involvement with or knowledge of the band performing, it's a pretty convincing Cale band. What's most notable about it is, perhaps, the fairly conventional nature of the thing. It sounds like Rock Music. The guitar lead goes places (at least in circles), the stolid and martial drumming sounds like it should be backing a very unrehearsed garage band, and (Cale's?) bass part (which seems to appear only in the last third) thumps along.

After turning over in place with one feedback-loaded guitar explosion after another, it finally moves into some appealingly chunky rhythmic territory after Cale joins in. There's nothing particularly experimental or even very confrontational about it (unlike the title track or "Dance of the Seven Veils"). It sounds completely spur-of-the moment, a tune-up that turned into a "piece of music" - I think that's a virtue. It's just a loud, agitated-but-enthusiastic way to ring out one bad decade and ring in another.

Nothing changes but the numbers on the wall, so turn up your amps and say hello to 2008. Happy New Year!

2 comments:

Ian said...

Happy New Year, sir! Yours is definitely my favourite remaining oeuvreblog, and I keep enjoying it immensely. Think you'll get finished in 2008?

Inverarity said...

Thanks! It seems exceedingly unlikely, especially since I keep expanding the scope of the project with Nico and the Velvets etc.

At the current rate of ~10 tracks/month, it will take 30+ months total (or 23+ months from now). Quality is more important to me than quantity, though - I hope it shows!