Guitar legend Phil Manzanera, best known for his long career as guitarist in Roxy Music invited The Parts You Don’t Hear around to his West London studio to talk about his memorable times at Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea.
Being a huge Velvet Underground fan, Phil jumped at the chance to work with ex Velvet John Cale on his classic Fear (1974) album. As producer, Phil decided also to bring in friend, collaborator and ex Roxy Music bandmate Brian Eno to add some extra sonic experimentation to the proceedings. The result is quite simply one of the best rock albums of the 1970’s and arguably John Cale‘s finest album. Certainly Cale’s songs and lyrics are particularly strong and dark here, Manzanera and Eno are at the top of their game too, adding a rough-edge bite to the guitar and the VCS3 synthesiser treatments. Engineer John Wood, from our earlier interview recalls this album as one of his personal favourites too.
The Cale, Manzanera, Eno & Wood combination worked so well that when it came to recording fellow ex Velvet Underground bandmate Nico‘s 4th album The End (1974), producer John Cale invited Phil & Brian around to Sound Techniques to help with some further sonic exploration to the John Wood engineered sessions. Given the loose, meandering style of Nico’s harmonium based compositions, the addition of Eno on synthesiser and Manzanera on treated guitar seems in hindsight an inspired and natural choice. Manzanera recalls the experience with ‘Goddess’ Nico in the studio as a dream come true especially with The Velvet Underground & Nico album being one of his all time favourite records.
Many thanks to Phil for his time and generosity in sharing his memories with us. He is currently as busy as always with his excellent brand new album Corroncho 2 having just been released. You can find links to this and more info at his website.
