Reed Taps Bowie for “Raven”
Lou Reed will release his new album, The Raven, on January
28th, on Sire/Reprise. The ambitious collection features Reed’s
musical interpretations of the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe (including
actor Willem Dafoe’s reading of the classic poem which serves as
the title track) in addition to his own original Poe-inspired
lyrics.
The Raven — which will be released in a full two-CD
format, as well as a shorter, more music-centric version — is the
singer-songwriter’s latest investigation into the work of the
nineteenth century poet. Reed and avant garde theater director
Robert Wilson hatched POEtry, a piece of musical theater
that debuted in Hamburg, Germany, in 2000. And more recently, Reed
took part in producer Hal Willner’s annual Poe Invitational
Halloween performance at the University of California Los
Angeles.
In addition to Dafoe, Reed enlisted actors Steve Buscemi and
Amanda Plummer, and musicians David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Ornette
Coleman, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Anna and Kate
McGarrigle to bring the project to life. Reed’s regular band —
guitarist Mike Rathke, bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Tony
“Thunder” Smith — are also featured on the record. Willner, who
produced Reed’s last album, 2000’s Ecstasy, also recorded
The Raven.
“For sure Edgar Allen Poe is that most classical of American
writers — a writer more peculiarly attuned to our new century’s
heartbeat then he ever was to his own,” Reed wrote on his Web site.
“Obsessions, paranoia, willful acts of self destruction surround us
constantly . . . When given the opportunity to bring him to life
through words and music — text and dance — why I leapt at it — I
surged towards it like a Rottweiler chasing a bloody bone.”
Dafoe and Reed’s “The Raven” is available for download at
www.loureed.org.