Album Review: John Cale - Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood

In a musical wasteland of aging artists clamouring for credibility within the confines of the 21^st century, there are few that wave the flag of relevancy. John Cale, at the tender age of 70, continues to craft songs that are at once adventurous and exciting, yet his albums can often be hard to access. On Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood, though, the Velvet Underground co-founder for the most part concocts musical menageries that are playful, crude, flippant, esoteric and mischievous, all at once.

That's not to say that ...Nookie Wood serves up anything overly original – the title track sips from the cup of Tom Waits' trademark rambunctious whisky-soaked cabaret tropes, and there are flashes of the cynical, detached Cale that has made his pop music often hard to embrace. Yet despite all this, when tracks like the groove-laden and vocoder-drenched December Rains or the glacial, sonorous dreamscape of closer Sandman (Flying Dutchman) kicks in, there is an odd warmth inherent that is missing from many contemporary artists delving in the same field. Much of the instrumentation is steeped in skewed electronica, set at a glacial pace with syncopated shifts that usually serve to isolate the listener – yet Cale gets the formula right for the most part.

While contemporaries shirk the musical spotlight (David Bowie), fluctuate in relevancy (Paul Weller) or stumble under the weight of their own importance (hi there Lou!), Cale seems intent on deconstructing his canon, leaving his legacy for the purists while he lives in the moment, and the world is much better for such an approach.