Instructions: "This week's project is a tribute to Lou Reed, who passed away earlier this week. His album Metal Machine Music from 1975 is a classic early noise endeavor. The project this week is straightforward. Using the phrase "Metal Machine Muse" as your guide, create a tribute to Metal Machine Music. Please employ at least one actual metal in your work, and note it in the title of your track."
Around 1980-1981, I would have been 13 or 14 years old at the time, I checked out Metal Machine Music from the local public library. It was too far out for me then, but I didn't hate it. I just didn't understand it. I don't know if one ever really "understands" Metal Machine Music. It is what it is. Once I got a few more things under my belt, like Zero Tolerance For Silence and early Fennesz recordings, it's more easily appreciated. At least for me.
This recording is composed from two past Junto contributions I've made: Machine Symphony (disquiet0041-dirtyminimalism)and Central Discount 120915 (disquiet0037-asrealasitgets1). They are layered and pitch-shifted and processed a bit. Both were recordings of metal fans. Machine Symphony was recorded in a bathroom where I work. Central Discount was recorded in an Amish salvage grocery store about 15 miles southwest of where I live.
Jon Hassell, in 1990, for his track Voiceprint, wrote the following in the liner notes: "Metal Fatigue is a euphemism. The same vibrations express sympathy or illness depending on their target." Those words have stuck in my head over the years, and so I adapted part of it into the title.
More on this 96th Disquiet Junto project, in which metal machine music is made in tribute to the late Lou Reed, at:
disquiet.com/2013/10/31/disquiet0096-metalmachine/
More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/