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Lou Reed’s Mercurial Career & His New Age Swan Song

Revisiting Lou Reed’s final solo album ‘Hudson River Wind Meditations’ on the occasion of its first vinyl pressing.

Rock, Experimental
Hudson River Wind Meditations
Lou Reed
2024
Electronic, Ambient
2 x Vinyl
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By Davey Ferchow

Lou Reed was many things throughout his long and mercurial music career – art rock pioneer, glam sensation, noise rock provocateur – but few fans may remember one of his final turns: that of ambient new age composer.

The last album Reed recorded before his death in 2013 was 2011’s Lulu, an avant-garde metal collaboration with Metallica that proved divisive among fans of both artists, even given Reed’s long history of subverting expectations and following his muse to unexpected places. Reed’s final solo album, however, shows a lesser known – though no less illuminating – side of his creative character. 

Hudson River Wind Meditations, is the second offering in Light In The Attic’s Lou Reed archive series and is the first time the album has ever been pressed on vinyl. Fans looking for Reed’s deadpan vocals, lyrical wit, or abrasive guitar playing may be in for a surprise, as Reed’s solo swan song is an album of soothing electronic music intended to soundtrack meditation. This final solo statement from Reed not only represented one last shift in a long and winding artistic career, but also allowed him to explore in music his late-in-life passion for tai-chi.

But while Lou Reed is best known as a singer and songwriter and for his pioneering work with art rock band the Velvet Underground, his restless musical career was full of musical experimentation and unexpected turns.

The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground & Nico
2020
Art Rock, Psychedelic, Experimental
Vinyl, Album, Reissue
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Formed in 1964, the Velvet Underground combined Reed’s pop songwriting chops (honed as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records) with primal rock’n’roll energy, provocative lyrics, and avante-garde influences shared with collaborator John Cale, who had studied with composers La Monte Young and John Cage. Their debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, added chanteuse vocals from German singer-songwriter Nico as well as iconic album art from Andy Warhol, who also became the band’s manager. The album’s songs alternately pulse, drone, and tenderly meander. On 1968’s follow-up White Light/White Heat, Reed dives deeper into transgressive lyrical themes, improvisation, and high levels of distortion. And though they remained obscure in their time, the Velvet Underground became a major inspiration for the raucous punk, new wave, and immersive shoegaze that followed.

Metal Machine Music
Lou Reed
1975
Electronic, Noise
2 x Vinyl, LP, Album
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After two more VU albums, 1969’s self-titled, and 1970’s Loaded, Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground to embark on a solo career. Though his self-titled 1972 solo debut struggled to find an audience, the David Bowie-produced follow-up Transformer – also featuring contributions from Bowie and Spiders From Mars’ guitarist Mick Ronson – was released the same year to widespread acclaim. Following 1973’s Berlin and 1974’s Sally Can’t Dance, Reed was battling the pressures of mainstream success, record label expectations, and drug and alcohol addictions. Reed responded by releasing the infamous Metal Machine Music. The controversial album from 1975 filled four LP sides with an hour of noise and modulated feedback, and which was viewed as an attempt to break his contract with RCA and alienate fans of his more accessible material.

Songs For Drella
Lou Reed / John Cale
2020
Rock, Art Rock
Vinyl, Album, Record Store Day, Limited Edition, Reissue
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In the decades that followed, Lou Reed would get sober, meet longtime romantic and creative partner Laurie Anderson, and continue to release albums as unpredictable as ever, from the the new wave funk of 1986’s Mistrial to 1989’s poetic triumph New York. Reed also collaborated with former Voidoid Robert Quine on 1982’s The Blue Mask and once again with John Cale on 1990’s Songs For Drella, an art-rock song cycle celebrating the life and times of their former friend and art co-conspirator, Andy Warhol.

The Raven
Lou Reed
2019
Electronic, Rock, Non-Music, Alternative Rock, Avantgarde, Experimental, Pop Rock, Spoken Word, Dialogue
3 x Vinyl, Album, Record Store Day, Limited Edition, Reissue
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Reed released one last solo rock record in 2000 with Ecstasy, but primarily favored more ambitious and conceptual projects in his later years, including the aforementioned Lulu as well as The Raven, a reworking of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

Even among these experimental efforts, 2007’s Hudson River Wind Meditations remains a surprising record, an ambient electronic album full of hypnotic textures meant to soothe and sink into the back of the mind, to create a peaceful backdrop for meditative breathing or movement, and to “replace the everyday cacophony with new and ordered sounds of an unpredictable nature.”

After an often confrontational career of wild ups and downs, Hudson River Wind Meditations allowed Reed to conclude his solo recording on his own peace-seeking terms.

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