Cale, John: The Academy In Peril (Vinyl LP)

John Cale was never very kind to his solo debut, Vintage Violence. When it was released in early 1970, Cale had been out of The Velvet Underground for less than two years. He wanted to prove he could be the songwriter, the person penning the words and melodies behind which a band could work. “I was masked on Vintage Violence,” he wrote much later. “You’re not really seeing the personality.”

Indeed, Cale’s personality as a polyglot seemingly interested in everything emerged more and more on his next two solo albums, his only two for Reprise: 1972’s bracing and exploratory classical sojourn, The Academy In Peril, and 1973’s masterclass in anxious but accessible songcraft, Paris 1919. By reissuing both records in tandem affirms the artistic fearlessness Cale then fostered at the edge of 30, when all of music seemed like one inviting playpen.

When Cale arrived in Los Angeles from New York in the early ’70s, he was a pinball in the world; out of The Velvet Underground, out of a marriage with designer Betsey Johnson, no longer a vital piece of a New York scene. He had just kicked heroin, too. In California, he entered a chaotic new relationship, starting his new industry gig, and found his West Coast drug of choice, cocaine.

Despite its reputation as Reprise’s first classical album, The Academy In Peril indulges that extreme upper energy, bouncing among ambitious ideas with unguarded zeal. Warner Brothers spent $120,000 on The Academy In Peril, and Cale even enlisted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to play on several of its tracks. Still, there is an early punk energy to it all, with a frantic pace of making from idea to execution, where he created his own secret fusion and ignored the strictures of expectation.

1. The Philosopher 
2. Brahms
3. Legs Larry At Television Centre
4. The Academy In Peril
5. Intro
6. Days Of Steam 
7. 3 Orchestral Pieces: a) Faust b) The Balance c) Capt. Morgans Lament 
8. King Harry
9. John Milton