The California E.A.R. Unit

Ulrich Krieger’s latest electroacoustic version of Lou Reed’s audacious 1975 double-LP guitar feedback epic is the occasion for this expertly rendered hour-plus of clangorous mayhem from the California E.A.R. Unit and Krieger’s Sonic Boom outfit. First transcribed and arranged for chamber orchestra in 2002, Krieger’s score has as one of its biggest fans none other than Reed himself—so much so that the iconic rocker joined in with the German avant-garde ensemble Zeitkratzer for the work’s world premiere. The new adaptation of Metal Machine Music, part of an ongoing project by Krieger, seizes on the complex orchestral scope of Reed’s original, its modal use of pitch and rhythm, its bold yet intricate colors, and its sheer freewheeling, hard-rocking gutsiness—with the virtuoso players of the E.A.R. Unit and Sonic Boom coaxing from their instruments the improbable deep noise that Rolling Stone once called “the tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator.”

Listen to an excerpt of "Metal Machine Music"