The original Music for a New Society recording (included here with this newly reworked version) is full of raw feelings, troublesome thoughts, and agitation. Those emotions come through in the content of the songs as well as the actual sounds. The album would be notable simply as a collection of unusually personal lyrics in revealing and intimate settings, but Cale chose to make things a good deal messier. Even straightforward ballads like “Close Watch” and “Taking Your Life in Your Hands” are disturbed by thorny sounds rising up from the background. Rough-edged percussion, fuzzy organs, and bagpipes show up from time to time, and a couple of tracks, like “Library of Force,” are mostly noise. It’s an album that’s defies your attempts to enjoy it; as Cale’s voice pulls you closer, every other sound on the record works to alienate you.

So what happens when Cale (and his current touring band) remix and complicate this jagged artifact? Generally speaking, M:FANS (Double Six/Domino) is the further obfuscation of the spontaneous and affecting performances that were the highlight of the original. Most of the reworked songs are altered enough to be nearly unrecognizable. The splintered edges have been sanded and varnished, and all vulnerability is gone. Previously emotional performances like “Chinese Envoy” and “Close Watch” have been rendered harmless with drum loops and funky guitar riffs. The impassioned “Damn Life” has been removed completely. M:FANS might best be thought of as an aged scientist returning to an unproven hypothesis. Or an older and tamer musician backtracking to resolve old dissonance. The result is an album that’s actually more fun to listen to than its lovably clumsy predecessor, but also far less memorable.