Lou Reed is a man of thousand faces, he can either be your hardcore singer songwriter, capable of getting compared with the best like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen or even Jacques Brel, or either he can be a fiery vanguardist in the tradition of people like John Cage, Brian Eno or Iannis Xenakis, he can also be a glam rocker like Bowie (who got the inspiration from Lou in the first place), and suddenly, the next thing we know about him, he is making soundtracks to Tai Chi practice, fine for me!

His new motto this time around is No Words! No Songs! And tha´s a hell of a motto for someone who is a master at crafting songs and writing words, that’s a self negation or a career suicide for the common human being, but Lou is not a common human being, this time Lou is once again a part of a group (another suicide, this time as a soloist!), back to the times of the almighty Velvet Underground, Lou is putting himself aside in order to get involved in an awesome innovative new project, The Metal Machine Trio (a name obviously based on his 70s noise adventure).

Invoking the noise maelstrom of his “Magnus” Metal Machine Music, Lou gets along with two new collaborators, Ulrich Krieger, from German extreme-modern classic composition group Zeitkratzer, (a bunch of talented guys who reinterpret in very imaginative ways difficult classics by people like Lou or Japan demon Keiji Haino) and Sarth Calhoun, a sound man, acquainted with Lou from past projects, Krieger is on charge of tenor sax, making some extreme noise this side of John Zorn, while Calhoun´s role is a little more difficult to explain, he is in charge of creating some punishing electronic noise via digital instruments in order “to keep continuum” between Lou´s guitar and Krieger´s sax.

Lou´s previous involvement with extreme New York improvisers like John Zorn, Marc Ribot and Laurie Anderson, is an obvious precedent of this new phase, this recording being a live one, faithfully captures Lou´s new sonic direction, a new creative path in which Lou uses the most extreme distorted guitar technique we have seen him playing since his VU days, kick out the words, the songs and create out of air intense atmospheres along his new pals, and uncovers a part that laid way back in his past, a phase occult on VU´s old live recordings in which improvisation took big place, also the old “electrical school of improvisation” set by people like Miles Davis is another important influence on Lou new direction, as the band forges powerful maelstroms of noise and then suddenly submerges themselves on almost ambient sounds.