JOHN CALE - POPtical Illusion Tour 2025

Don't be fooled by "POPtical Illusion," the playful title of John Cale's second album in just over a year: He's still angry, still enraged by the wanton destruction that unchecked capitalists and unrepentant con artists have brought upon the wonders of this world and the goodness of people.

"The right-wingers are burning their libraries down," Cale croaks caustically from the bowels of a static storm during 'Company Commander,' a dizzying centerpiece of confusing sequences, hectic rhythms, and overlapping drones. "Giving us the benefits and the doubt." Such moments throughout the hour-long and all-consuming POPtical Illusion reinforce the feeling of MERCY, Cale's much-lauded 2023 album, which was as curious as it was fierce. Guests like Weyes Blood, Animal Collective, and Sylvan Esso reinforced that feeling, amplifying the unease and anger across generational lines. For his first solo album in seven years, Cale had a lot of unpleasant news to process.

But POPtical Illusion is by no means MERCY II or a collection of discontinued models. In fact, in a career spanning more than six decades, Cale has never been a fan of repetition. His avant-garde enthusiasm alternated with proud restlessness between ecstatic classical and free-spirited rock, between classic songcraft and electronic reinterpretation. And so on POPtical Illusion he dispenses with the illustrious line-up to venture mostly alone into the labyrinths of synthesizers and samples, organs and pianos, with words that represent for Cale a kind of swirling hope, a wise insistence that change is still possible. "When you've done things you wish you'd never done," he sings on the irrepressible 'Davies and Wales,' a lilting slice of new wave-meets-Brian Wilson delight, 'think about the things you're going to do tonight.' Produced by Cale and longtime artistic partner Nita Scott in his Los Angeles studio, POPtical Illusion is the work of someone who doesn't ignore the anger or the reasons behind it, but instead tries to move on to the future - just as Cale has always done, of course.

John Cale has always been a musician of the times, helping to usher in titanic shifts in sound and culture. The groundbreaking drones of his Sun Blindness Music paved the way for The Velvet Underground. The wild rock of Fear and Slow Dazzle, not to mention his productions with Patti Smith and the Stooges, shaped punk, post-punk and art rock for half a century. On POPtical Illusion, Cale once again shows himself to be a musician of the times.