Solo albums
Church of Anthrax
About this album
Released on February 10, 1971. Columbia CS 30131.
Tracks:
- Church of Anthrax
- The Hall Of Mirrors In The Palace At Versailles
- The Soul Of Patrick Lee
- Ides Of March
- The Protege
All tracks by John Cale and American composer Terry Riley, except The Soul Of Patrick Lee by John Cale. He wanted Sterling Morrison to play guitar on the album, but he was unavailable at the time. According to Cale the Vintage Violence album was recorded in the same week in October 1969. The pair had laid down eight tracks on May 16 and May 28, but it is unclear whether some of these recordings made it unto the finished album.
"Anthrax was three days in the studio with Terry Riley. John McClure was head of Columbia Masterworks at the time, and he wanted to expand the classical music line. It was not doing as well as rock and he wanted to get in on the action. We had Bobby Colomby from Blood, Sweat and Tears and Bobby Gregg from Dylan and the Hawks on drums. Adam Miller, who sang on 'Patrick Lee', was a friend of mine, a songwriter who worked mostly on commercials.
Anthrax was just an improvised gig with Terry. He got disillusioned I think, in the middle of mixing. It turned into a real mixing album. A lot of hard work went into that album but Terry felt he was being obscured. He wasn't being obscured, it was just that we'd put on so many organ tracks. To pick out a particular instrument was very difficult, so you couldn't bring him out anymore without bringing out the other instruments and making it imbalanced. He felt we were out to gang up on him, which wasn't true. As a rule he's very easy to get along with---charming, very quiet, very stable. He wants to do another album, so we're trying to set it up."
The album cover contains a text by John Cale: Caricature.
Musicians:
John Cale: bass, harpsichord, piano, guitar, viola, organ
Bobby Columby: drums
Bobby Gregg: drums
David Rosenboom: drums (uncredited)
Adam Miller: vocal on The Soul Of Patrick Lee
Terry Riley: piano, organ, soprano saxophone
Other credits:
Producers: John Cale and John McClure
Engineer: Don Meehan
Cover design: John Berg and Richard Mantel
Cover art: Kim Whitesides
Cover photo: Don Huntstein
"Ides of March" for "Straight and Narrow"
Ides of March is used for Tony Conrad and Beverly Grant's short experimental film Straight and Narrow in 1970 before the album was released.
"The Hall Of Mirrors In The Palace At Versailles" for Dollhouse Noah
The Hall Of Mirrors In The Palace At Versailles is used in the soundtrack of the Dream Thrum video by Dollhouse Noah, screened at the Design Festa in Tokyo, Japan on November 22 & 23, 1998.
Church of Anthrax II
A follow-up fails to materialize, when Cale does not want to play on it, but only wants to act as producer. Riley:
"We tried to do a Church of Anthrax II in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. I flew back to New York for some sessions with John. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. As it turned out, he didn’t want to play on it. He wanted to produce me and have it be my album. I realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to do a collaborative thing and work together like we did the first time, because I did really like playing with him. He really is a good musical collaborator and force. But I didn’t want to be produced by him. I didn’t need a producer. So, we didn’t end up doing it."
CD reissue
American CD label Culture Factory reissues the album in 2013 on compact-disc which reproduces meticulously all the components of the original LP and are their exact replicas in compact-disc size (5.3 x 5.3 inches). The music is encoded using state of the art, high definition remastering in 96 kHz / 24 BIT audio.
Terry Riley's "The Columbia Recordings" box set
The album is part of Riley's The Columbia Recordings 4CD box set, released in 2025.