LOU REED/ZEITKRATZER

13 october
Teatro Palladium

In the mythology of rock, “Metal Machine Music” by Lou Reed looms mysteriously like the black monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey”: this work returns to Rome in a concert version by the ensemble Zeitkratzer, a unique event in this year’s Romaeuropa Festival programme.

A double album radically different from all of Lou Reed's previous works from that same period such as “Transformer”, “Berlin”, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal” or “Coney Island Baby”: “Metal Machine Music” offers us over an hour of solo electric guitar; forceful and distorted and void of any title, songs, lyrics or even the human voice. Soon after its release in 1975, it proved to be a colossal commercial fiasco, so much so that in the United States it was withdrawn from the market after only three weeks. Later, however, it was considered to be a prophetic work for many new musical trends from punk to no wave and soon became a reference work for the “noise”, “industrial” and new electronic pop music currents. In the 90's the re-release of the CD sold over 100,000 copies and in 2002, Zeitkratzer embarked on another folly; the re-arrangement of the same work for 11 classical stringed and wind instruments to be performed live with amplification. The experiment was a success and even the initially sceptic Lou Reed, who said «…it can't be done…», was fascinated by this new arrangement and the its powerful impact of the sound.

Indeed, this project could only be fruit of the highly creative work of Zeitkratzer, founded in 1999 by Reinhold Friedl, and composed of soloists from different countries but with its operative base in Berlin. Zeitkratzer is an independent ensemble without any public financing whatsoever, something of which they are proud; free in body and more importantly, free in mind. Their works are remarkable, not only for their vast repertoire which encompasses a vast range of works from Iannis Xenakis and Karl Heinz Stockhausen to John Cage, Carsten Nicolai, Luigi Nono, Lou Reed, Philip Glass, Frank Gratkowski and Nam June Paik, but also for their interpretation of these same works and their ability to uncover the profound unity which can be traced like a thread throughout the musical genre of the 1900's or contemporary period. Due to their creative efforts, “Metal Machine Music” from its prophetic entry into the realm of myth will be performed for the first time in Italy in its definitive arrangement.