In July 1975 Lou Reed shocked the public with the release of Metal Machine Music, the first noise composition ever. The 64-minute double LP was pulled from the market by RCA after 2 weeks – a „career ender“ as Lou himself put it.
MMM still is interpreted as Lou giving the finger to his record company – „It’s amazing what people think“ is Lou Reed’s response.
In 2000 a 25-years anniversary edition was released and two years later Lou Reed joined the German ensemble zeitkratzer to perform a note-by-note transcription in Berlin and Venice.
In early 2003 Ulrich Maiss, a member of zeitkratzer at the time, sent a demo recording of his solo version of MMM to Lou Reed. Ulrich performed the Berlin premier of CelloMachine only a few months later with Lou Reed’s blessing.
Lou Reed on CelloMachine:
„CelloMachine is Maiss' interpretation of [my] classic excursion into what has later been termed industrial rock. Whatever the term, MMM lives. Composed over 25 years ago Metal Machine continues to challenge and adrenalize both the player and listener. [...] It’s like a rock approach to the cello - if you thought of the cello as a guitar with a feedback: off you go!“
