John Cale Announces Reworked Music For a New Society as M:FANS And Releases New Video For “Close Watch”

Last surviving member of the legendary Velvet Underground, John Cale just unveiled plans to release a newly remastered and reworked version of his 1982 solo-masterpiece, Music For A New Society.  Along with the double-LP release, M:FANS, slated to hit stores January 22, 2016, Cale opted to drop a brand-new video for his cleverly-revisioned classic-cut, “Close Watch.”

Having already been covered by Courtney Barnett earlier this year for special record-store-day release, John Cale’s “Close Watch” recently received a fresh retooling of the old-ditty via the “clinkety-clank” of synth-progressive drum-beats and the dynamic-layering of his own baritone-bravado with the Dirty Projectors‘ Amber Coffman.  The video, directed by renowned visionary Abby Portner, unfurls both Cale and Coffman in tangled-web of a daytime fanciful-dressup affair.

John Cale conveys his cunning on revisiting and re-crafting the soundscapes of Music For A New Society:

“Making any form of art is always personal to my mind.  During the making of M:FANS, I found myself loathing each and every character written about in those original recording sessions of Music For… Unearthing those tapes reopened those wounds.  It was time to decimate the despair from 1981 and breathe new energy, re-write the story.  Then, the unthinkable happened.  What had informed so much over lost and twisted relationships in 1981 had now come full circle.  Losing Lou (too painful to understand) forced me to upend the entire recording process and begin again…”

Cale continues:

“… a different perspective – a new sense of urgency to tell a story from a completely opposite point of view – what was once sorrow, was now a form of rage.  A fertile ground for exorcism of things gone wrong and the realization they are unchangeable.  From sadness came the strength of fire!!!”

M:FANS:
01. Prelude
02. If You Were Still Around
03. Taking Your Life In Your Hands
04. Thoughtless Kind
05. Sanctus (Sanities Mix)
06. Broken Bird
07. Chinese Envoy
08. Changes Made
09. Library Of Force (feat. Man In The Book excerpt)
10. Close Watch
11. If You Were Still Around (Choir Reprise)
12. Back To The End

Music For A New Society – Remastered:
01. Taking Your Life In Your Hands
02. Thoughtless Kind
03. Sanctus (Sanities)
04. If You Were Still Around
05. Close Watch
06. Broken Bird
07. Chinese Envoy
08. Changes Made
09. Damn Life
10. Rise, Sam And Rimsky Korsakov
11. Library Of Force (Unreleased)
12. Chinese Envoy (Outtakes)
13. Thoughtless Kind (Outtakes)