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Jack The Ripper
Lou Reed enters the twenty-first century with his genius intact and his art in fact. At this point in time, he stands with a body of work which places him at a level of rock & roll artistry where few others dwell and most fear to tread. From his very first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, his influence has been profound, if not scary. And although that landmark album met with nominal commercial success, it has sold many musicians on the possibilities suddenly available to creative imaginations. Over the years, Lou Reed has been recognized as a primal and constant force in a field where "geniuses" come and go like so many fashion plates.

Reed's work transcends time, with its beauty shimmering beneath frightening truths cloaked in the gutter. His observations and insight ring so accurately that he is often mistaken as the subject of his own art. We believe him completely. His complex visions of a temporary world in which the stakes are always rising as the bottom line grows uglier and more demanding, are the gifts of a rock & roll alchemist. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Lou Reed's gold is a must.

The singer-songwriter-guitarist's works about madness and hope, desire and treachery, reflections and addiction, are peopled by crackheads and intellectuals, angels and whores, prisoners and enforcers, wild children and diminished wolverine parents, the lost and the found in the arms of a voracious hunger disguised as life. These individuals are also confused by their own duality: accounts of memories, nightmares, visions, shadows, cartoons and mysteries all entwined in Lou Reed's love for rock & roll and its unlimited potential for salvation.

Lou Reed's America exists in previously uncharted waters. Few have explored the heart, soul, brain, underbelly and dementia of this culture more persuasively or poetically. He presents jokes like assassinations, love letters like injections and rooms with a point of view, encompassing the bleakest dead ends and the highest skies. There are no victims, only survivors. For over 30 years Lou Reed has written the American history on record, where the personal and political combine to create myth. His own mythology continues to grow, like a great peacock, wings spread - an Icarus in search of the sun.

The ultimate New Yorker's Ecstasy is the latest leap for an artist whose talents continue to astonish with wit, daring and joy. Traveling across a musical landscape that moves from paranoia through various stages of discovery, doubt and reaffirmation, it attains its apex with the postmodern symphonic power of "Like A Possum." This song follows in the stunning style and energy of "Heroin," "Sister Ray," "Coney Island Baby," Street Hassle" and "Magic and Loss" - epic pieces articulating the convergence of pure poetry, twenty-first century blues and the drive of primitive rock & roll beats.

Ecstasy has songs of undiluted cynicism cutting with Lou Reed's legendary blade, while others suggest a valiant, yet weary, romantic still in search of true love or its mirrored image. His songs sound and feel like no one else's. Reed's guitar playing has become human in its vastness, every attack infinite in its precision and passion. Once again, he is out to save lives with music, and as always, Lou Reed's weapon is that, like it or not, he is one of the few rock & rollers with the artillery to succeed.
Jack The Ripper
The new Lou Reed album, "Ecstacy," is out now
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