Tony's probably quite pleased to have thesereleased as they seem to back up his claims that Dream Syndicate sonichappenings were very much collective endeavours. The opening twentyminute Cale and Conrad string drone duet certainly has all the traitsof the previously released 'Day of Niagara' but is a better recording,although still sounding rough hewn. Perhaps it could be viewed as astepping stone on the path to Conrad's unrelenting skullfuck "FourViolins", but it's a transcendent portal in its own right. Cale's deepviola is the foundation with Conrad's violin cutting through the dreammist at spiky glancing angles. The viola is overwhelming, and everytime Cale shifts the drone up or down a notch colours swirl, shift,dissolve and reform. 'Ex-Cathedra' is Cale solo on Vox ContinentalOrgan with a beautiful shimmering tremelo loop underpinned by anintermittent half drowned lower chord. The third track is twelveminutes of what sounds like rummaging through the guts of a piano witha bunch of keys. Latterly the strings are bowed frantically to anintense maelstrom, and remind me of a couple of Thurston Moore'scomparatively polite duets with Nels Cline on "The Pillow Wand".'Carousel' is perhaps the most throwaway track, but only because it'sbeen done better so many times since. Cale makes 'electonic sounds'which thunk thunk thunk in the way that a guitar resting on top of itsamp might. The best is saved until last. The second duet with TonyConrad is as strangely beautiful and haunting as a track with a titlelike 'A Midnight Rain of Green Wrens at the World's Tallest Building'ought to be. The strings ooze retuned sadness for plummetinginter-dimensional avians. The final track finds Cale rattling off someextremely ragged guitar strumming with original Velvet Undergrounddrummer Angus Maclise bashing away on the cimbalom in a clatteringfreefalling ecstatic frenzy which perhaps shows a step in the evolutionof the glorious finale of the first Velvet Underground album. -
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