Hudson River Wind Meditations

Album review

Lou Reed’s final solo album, Hudson River Wind Meditations, was released in 2007 by Sounds True. This reissue by the label Light in The Attic, in collaboration with his wife Laurie Anderson, lets us listen in on the last years of his life, full of meditation, tai-chi, and yoga. “I first composed this music for myself as an adjunct to meditation, tai chi, and bodywork, and as music to play in the background of life — to replace the everyday cacophony with new and ordered sounds of an unpredictable nature. New sounds freed from preconception,” the leader of the Velvet Underground stated at the time. “Over time, friends who heard the music asked if I could make them copies. I then wrote two more pieces with the same intent: to relax the body, mind and spirit and facilitate meditation.”

It’s facing the Hudson, the river that goes across New York and opens into the Atlantic Ocean, that Lou Reed had private sessions each Tuesday with yoga teacher Eddie Stern, while listening to his own compositions. They flow through ambient soundscapes, painted in hypnotic loops of wind instruments, synthesizers, and subtle layers of guitars that Lou Reed recorded at night in his apartment. Divided into four parts, the first two stretching out over more than 20 minutes each, the entirety of the piece was then entrusted to producer Hal Willner and sound engineer Hector Castillo to be turned into a record. Although their apparent slowness may risk throwing off fans of the decadent 70s period, these spontaneous pieces shine for their singularity and depth. “I don’t even know how I wrote it, and even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to do it again,” Reed also told Stern. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz