Hobo Sapiens

Inspired by the uninhibited bravado of Beck and the nonchalant eclecticism of The Beta Band, amongst others, Cale has spent much of the last two years billeted in his Greenwich Village basement studio, mastering the 21st century musician’s paint box, Pro Tools - revelling in the freedom and complete creative control the digital technology affords. The first fruit of this recording renaissance, in which shimmering, disembodied electronics couch remarkable new songs and densely detailed arrangements are ratcheted up to new heights, is HoboSapiens, Cale’s first full-length album of songs in seven years. A twelve-track cavalcade of sample-laden rock, Grand Guignol balladry and unclassifiable instrumental exotica, HoboSapiens is a consummate John Cale album in the noble tradition of Paris 1919, Fear, or Music For A New Society - albeit with a modernist twist. Holding a magnifying glass to global human Diasporas, its lyrics zoom cinematically from Zanzibar to Pacific Palisades via Niagara Falls and the Norfolk Broads – its frame of reference positively encyclopedic.