John Cale Shares Video For New Song 'Shark-Shark'
POPtical Illusion Out June 14 via Double Six/Domino
08 May 2024
John Cale is releasing a new album, POPtical Illusion, on June 14 via Double Six/Domino. Now he's shared the album's second single, “Shark-Shark,” via a music video. Abigail Portner directed the video, which features Cale in a white suit with pink spots on it, in an art gallery full of dancers. Check it out below.
“Sometimes you write a song purely for mood,” Cale says in a press release. “'Shark-Shark' has two versions – both a nod to finding humor in music. When you feel too much from the real world, the best diversion is something that puts a smile on your face. I don't know how Abby and the team kept this shoot going—being 'non-serious' was a lot of fun!”
Portner said of the video: “When I first heard this song, the first thing that struck me was this atmosphere of gentle chaos, a chaos that's not dangerous, but a playfulness that happens at a slumber party or a comedy show. of the 80s. I was in Oslo last summer with John and I had taken a bunch of pictures of the band in the National Museum standing in the bust room looking very intense and cold. This idea popped into my head of what if the chaos in this song was the sculptures coming to life and breaking all the rules! The idea of taking something like the National Museum or Swan Lake and subverting it with the art itself seemed appropriate for this song.”
Cale previously shared the album's first single, “How We See the Light,” via a music video. It was one of the songs of the week.
POPtical Illusion is fast tracking MERCY, which was his first new album in a decade and was released in January 2023 via Double Six/Domino. This album featured a number of notable collaborators including Weyes Blood, Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso, Laurel Halo, Tei Shi, Fat White Family and Actress. MERCY was one of our top 100 albums of 2023. A press release notes that POPtical Illusion “it is not at all MERCY IIor some garbage collection'.
Cale produced the new album with longtime artistic collaborator Nita Scott at his studio in Los Angeles. Cale was a founding member of the legendary 60s band The Velvet Underground, but often tried to push his music into the future, rather than reveling in past glories.
Read our 2023 interview with John Cale MERCY.
Read our review of MERCY.
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