Laurie Anderson lifts the lid on the archive of her late husband, Lou Reed, in the latest edition of Uncut.
Interviewed in the July 2016 issue – which is now on sale in UK shops – Anderson reveals: “There’s a million things in there. Eight hundred hours, it’s massive. We’re trying to think of some really good things to do with it so we’re still sorting through it.
“Does it go back before the Velvet Underground? Oh yeah. It’s his life work.
“He spent the last three months of his life remastering stuff from the Arista era,” she continues. “It’s about 25 CDs. It’s so beautiful and to see how excited he was about it, about using technology from now to make that stuff sound like its true self, was really surreal. It’s not about smoothing it out, it’s about roughing it up sometimes. There’s always different criteria. The energy of that music comes zooming out in a way that is almost terrifying. It’s really exciting.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Anderson shares her favourite memory of David Bowie, how she came to MC for William Burroughs, punching Andy Kaufman and why exactly she isn’t planning to run for President of the United States…
The new issue of Uncut is on sale now and also available to buy digitally by clicking here.
Lou Reed: The RCA & Arista Album Collection will be released on October 7.
Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.