Zeitkratzer with Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music

In 1975 Lou Reed produced the singular guitar album Metal Machine Music. A whorl of feedback and reverb, its four quarter-hour long tracks feature heavily distorted sound effects and little else: no voice, no tune, no real sense of structure and no concession to the listener whatsoever. Influential music critic Lester Bangs gushed that it was 'the greatest record ever made in the history of the human eardrum', but understandably it has continued to divide listeners into fervent lovers and abject haters. The avant-garde music community was surprised, including Reed himself, in 2002, when German modern classical musician Ulrich Krieger came forward and announced he had fully scored this seemingly impregnable work – a translation project of several years. The recording is disconcertingly faithful, but also distinctly different. Classical music has rarely sounded heavier and more intense, though really MMM is sufficiently intense as to break down boundaries of definition. Reed joined Zeitkratzer for the concert, and the point in the third piece, at which the ensemble's group noise-making switches to his solo guitar warp-manship, is truly powerful: a moment of simultaneous degeneration and impulsive creativity. [R J Thomson]