John Cale teases forthcoming album with new single, "Shark-Shark"

“Sometimes you write a song purely for a mood,” Cale explains of the new single. “‘Shark-Shark’ has two versions - both a nod to finding humour in music. When you’re feeling too much of the real world, the best diversion is something that puts a grin on your face. I don’t know how Abby & team kept this shoot together - being ‘unserious’ was a lot of fun!”

Despite the playful title, POPtical Illusion, Cale’s second album in just over a year still contains the same feelings of fierce and inquisitive rage that were present in last year’s much-lauded MERCY. He remains angry, still incensed by the wilful destruction that unchecked capitalists and unrepentant con-men have hoisted upon the wonders of this world and the goodness of its people. In a period of a little over a year, Cale wrote more than 80 songs collectively surveying the range of human experience, and in the process—humour bled into frustration, regret gave way to forgiveness, sadness tangled with surrealism.

The video sees Cale collaborating once again with director Abigail Portner. “When I first heard this song the first thing that struck me was this vibe of gentle chaos, a chaos that's not dangerous but a playfulness that happens at a sleepover party or in an 80s comedy," she says. "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 hall of busts, looking very stark and cold. This idea popped into my head of what if the chaos in this song was sculptures coming to life and breaking all the rules! The concept of taking something like the National Museum or Swan Lake and having the art itself turn it upside down seemed fitting for this song.”