Consumer Guide Album

John Cale: Fear [Island, 1974]
With Phil Manzanera flailing his axe like rocksy music was a thing of the future and Eno doing his best Baby Cortez imitation it sounds as if somebody just played "Sister Ray" for Cale and he thought the world of it. Manzanera's feedback extravaganza on "Gun" is a landmark of six-string aleatoric, and on "The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy" the entire ensemble comes up with the perfect sleazy-slick background rock for the glass-table scene in a porn flick. Concept: see title. A−