Description:
Even the most die-hard Sonic Youth fan must have tip-toed trepidatiously to his or her first listen to the band's major label releases in the 1990s. However, the releases on the band's own SYR label, while concentrating exclusively on the most experimental end of their sonic spectrum, have been consistently fascinating and varied. The first two SYR releases were the work of the core quartet, the third added Jim O'Rourke (as a semi-permanent member) and the fourth, Goodbye 20th Century, expanded the ensemble with seven guests. This disc is the first release on the label that is not by Sonic Youth per se--Kim Gordon has joined for
Even the most die-hard Sonic Youth fan must have tip-toed trepidatiously to his or her first listen to the band's major label releases in the 1990s. However, the releases on the band's own SYR label, while concentrating exclusively on the most experimental end of their sonic spectrum, have been consistently fascinating and varied. The first two SYR releases were the work of the core quartet, the third added Jim O'Rourke (as a semi-permanent member) and the fourth, Goodbye 20th Century, expanded the ensemble with seven guests. This disc is the first release on the label that is not by Sonic Youth per se--Kim Gordon has joined forces with DJ Olive and Ikue Mori. Mori has been a fixture of the downtown New York experimental scene for two decades and employs a sampler and a pile of electronic percussion that looks like it was soldered together from a mail-order kit. DJ Olive is one third of WE, who are the best of New York's so-called "illbient" scene. The recontextualization that the new trio allows suits Gordon very well--shorn of any need to "rock", her knotty distorted guitar textures are settled snugly amidst the whirlwind of sound from the other two and her voice bobs around like a raft on the sonic sea. There's very little in the way of conventionally structured songs here, so she can stretch out a bit with some extended vocal techniques. Often ("Neu Adult", "Lemonade"), the lyrics are spread out in a way that doesn't readily invite following them as a narrative. Other songs are a little more straightforward, as when she's hollering "Donald Duck, kill Minnie!" ("We are the Princesses"), or the more Surrealist "Paperbag/Orange Laptop" where the words are easy to understand but intriguingly difficult to make sense of. You might think that between a DJ and a drum machine operator, something resembling a groove would emerge, but Mori never does that and Olive remains equally abstract on this occasion--the two create a complex kaleidoscope of sounds with plenty of percussive chatter but no regular pulse. -Bob Bannister
... (more)
(less)
Manufacturer: Syr
Release date: 21 August 2000
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0787996900520 UPC: 787996900520
My tags:
Add tags
Login
