The Velvet Underground’s Matrix Tapes Will Receive the Vinyl Treatment for the First Time

Recordings from The Velvet Underground’s 1969 residency at The Matrix in San Francisco will finally receive the vinyl treatment.

The Complete Matrix Tapes, which includes 43 tracks spanning two live performances from Nov. 1969, will be released worldwide July 12 via Polydor/UMe in a limited-edition 8xLP box set.

The box set will include nine previously unreleased performances, early versions of the yet-to-be-recorded “Sweet Jane” and “New Age,” and rare live takes of “Venus in Furs.” All featured recordings were mixed down directly from The Matrix’s in-house four-track recorder.

The band’s lineup at the time was composed of Lou Reed, Maureen Tucker, Sterling Morrison and Doug Yule, and the band was just beginning to enter their Loaded era.

Rolling Stone editor David Fricke, who penned the liner notes, wrote of the Matrix collection: “On one hand, [it] is just two nights, in one room, in the life of a working band. It also has everything they aspired to and achieved on stage, every night, everywhere: the magnificent aggression and determined joy; the fictions shot through with truth; the lasting bonds established in almost total, commercial blackout. You can easily walk into the music and never want to leave—a perfect definition of both a great rock & roll gig and a history that keeps on giving.”

You can preorder the eight-piece boxed set here and check out the tracklist below, beneath an image of the box set and a 1997 Reed performance from the Paste archives.

The Complete Matrix Tapes Tracklist:

LP ONE
Side 1
I’m Waiting For The Man (Version 1)
What Goes On (Version 1)

Side 2
Some Kinda Love (Version 1)
Heroin (Version 1)