BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICH.- Running through March 26, 2016, Lou Reed, Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe is a 3-D sound environment inspired by Lou Reed’s controversial 1975 double album, Metal Machine Music.

The installation at Cranbrook uses 12 loudspeakers in an ambisonic arrangement to create a fully immersive sound experience. Guests will hear the live recording Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe, as performed by Reed and the members of his group Metal Machine Trio at the Blender Theatre New York in 2009. Metal Machine Trio was founded in 2008 by Reed, Ulrich Krieger and Sarth Calhoun with the intention of using Metal Machine Music as their reference point for their improvisational music.

The show is co-curated by current Director of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum Christopher Scoates and Raj Patel, a leading international acoustics, audio-visual, and multimedia consultant with Arup Engineering SoundLab in New York. Scoates and Patel originally presented the exhibition in 2012 at the University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach. At the time, Lou Reed worked in collaboration with the acoustic specialists at Arup, who were able to recreate for museum visitors this groundbreaking composition from exactly the same acoustic perspective he had while performing it onstage with his group in 2009.

“This is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to hear what I believe is Lou Reed’s most critically important and challenging work,” said Scoates.

Cranbrook Art Museum published a full-color catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition that includes essays by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Raj Patel, and Ulrich Krieger.