Surrounding both John Cale and Terry Riley is a tremendous amount of not just reverence, but intrigue. It would seem that pairing these two performers together would result in artistic success, but an artistic success that would be backed by a pretty broad smattering of the record buying populace.

Riley, of course, is considered by some to be the foremost exponent of minimalism. And while that might be debatable, Cale is gifted a great deal of credit for inspiring the Velvet Underground, of which he was a member of during the recording of its first two albums. Certainly there are some circles that neither of these people carries any cache. But for now, we’ll just assume that the folks who don’t know don’t deserve to know. How’s that?

While neither of these composers really attained any sort of popular acceptance – i.e. radio play – the deference afforded each should have rendered the confluence of the pair’s skills in the form of The Church of Anthrax a blinding success across the boards. Today, though, the album isn’t really mentioned much even as it retains elements of both performers’ pasts and even a bit of what would follow this 1970 recording.

After leaving the Velvets, Cale recorded Vintage Violence, his first foray into solo recording. Anthrax was recorded during the same calendar year, but didn’t see release until ’71. There’s no apparent reason as to why the release of this particular disc was delayed, but it may have resulted in its dismissal in light of the more pop oriented fair that preceded it. And really, there’re only a few moments on Anthrax where Cale and Riley get anywhere near something consumable by the average American music fan.

That being said, pretty much everything here is a stoned classic. Opening with the title track, its all European styled avant-rock stuffs with the composition coming off as something crafted more so by Cale than Riley. That, though, gets all flipped around on the following track as some of the piano playing on “The Hall of Mirrors In The Palace At Versailles” approaches Riley’s own work.

Given that each musician possesses such a distinct sound, some may have guessed that the collaboration wouldn’t have come off too well. But Cale and Riley are able to aptly accompany each other on everything offered up here.

There are a few surprises, though. The two pop styled songs get the job done with “The Soul of Patrick Lee,” sung by Adam Miller, coming off as the stronger of the two. Most likely the inclusion of such fair points to Columbia Records, the imprint that originally issued the disc, seeking out some marketable single. They got it, but the tune apparently didn’t do anything in the way of broadening the listening audience.

No matter, though. The fact that The Church of Anthrax isn’t today viewed as an important piece in either Cale or Riley’s career doesn’t lessen the inherent value of the music. It’s a bit erratic moving from jam-based workouts to the aforementioned pop songs. But that just means there’s more than one manner in which one might appreciate what’s going on here.