Sonic Youth
Sister
Received a 9.8 rating on Pitchfork. “Let’s get something straight. There is no album in the entire corpus of indie rock—not Loveless, not Surfer Rosa, not Psychocandy—that reaches the heights of invention, joy, and magic of Sonic Youth’s sublime fifth album.... The haunted reveries of Sister remain with you for years, even if you only hear them once…. Sister is the sonic manifestation of refracted light. It’s a record that changes you.” —Stereogum
One of Sonic Youth’s most beloved albums, 19…
Live at Liberty Lunch, Austin, TX. November 26, 1988
Touring in support of theIR classic LP, Daydream Nation, Thurston, Kim, and the gang rolled into Austin's legendary Liberty Lunch club for what would turn out to be one of the most highly regarded live dates in the group's history. With a track list that drew heavily on their latest LP, Live at Liberty Lunch captures the touring Sonic Youth at their noisiest and gnarliest, proving once and for all that they were the best and most important indie-rock group of the 80s (and beyond).
Simon Werner A Disparu
In Spring 2010, Sonic Youth gathered at their Echo Canyon West studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, to watch the rushes of a new film, Simon Werner a Disparu, by French director Fabrice Gobert. They spent the following few weeks recording music which was then shaped as needed to fit the various scenes. For this release, rather than present the small clips of music as used in the film, the band went back in the autumn to the original tapes and re-organized the various pieces for this original soundtrac…
Massage The History
In celebration of The Infinite Mix, The Vinyl Factory releases the soundtrack to Cameron Jamie's ‘Massage The History’ by Sonic Youth. Cameron Jamie has described his films as ‘a way to visit hidden worlds within our world.’ In Massage the History, the artist combines footage of young men in Alabama performing an erotically charged, provocative dance with living-room furniture in middle-class homes, with found footage of violent or surreal events filmed in anonymous American suburbs. In the…
Bad Moon Rising
Sonic Youth’s second full-length LP Bad Moon Rising was originally released on Homestead and Blast First in 1985. The album is a fascinating examination of “the junction where hippie idealism [meets] the cold hard world,” says guitarist Lee Ranaldo, “where Woodstock [meets] Altamont—Death Valley, Charles Manson, Brian Wilson, musicians, murderers, heroes and villains.” Its original eight-song tapestry of droning guitar feedback, distant clattering percussion, and sullen vocals, all held together…
Spinhead Sessions 1986
" The slow-burn sounds of Sonic Youth’s 1986 rehearsals to score Ken Friedman’s spooky highway film Made In USA are yet another mile marker in the band’s long and varied existence, now being issued as Spinhead Sessions (named for the North Hollywood studio used by SST label acts like Black Flag and Painted Willie). These jams were later built upon for a full-on (and quite different) soundtrack production, but the rough sketches here find the band taking time with truly new and introspective so…
EVOL
"EVOL" was Sonic Youth's fourth album, significant for one fairly obvious reason: the addition of Steve Shelley behind the kit. Steve joined the band in mid 1985, and this is the first album he plays on. EVOL also features the first real "guest appearance" on a Sonic Youth album -- Mike Watt, who contributes bass to "In The Kingdom #19" and the non-LP bonus track "Bubblegum". "Shadow Of A Doubt" became their second music video. At some point circa June 1985, after the first European Bad Moon Ris…
Silver Sessions
"Silver Sessions were taken from an evening when Sonic Youth had to do vocal overdubs for 'A Thousand Leaves' - the band upstairs was hammering out some funky metal overdrive and we couldn't "sing" properly - we decided to fight fire with molten lava and turned every amp we owned on to 10+ and leaned as many guitars and basses we could plug in against them and they roared/howled like airplanes burning over the pacific - we could only enter the playing room with hands pressed hard against our ear…
In The Fishtank
Another installment of Konkurrent's fantastic series which invites bands to record while touring Holland, giving 2 days to record 20-30 min of whatever they want. In June 2001 SY played the Holland Festival. For their studio time they invited the Dutch ICP-jazzers HAN BEENICK, AB BEARS & WOLTER WIERBOS, plus LUC & TERRIE of THE legendary EX! In one day they recorded these delicate, abstract & elusive miniatures that fit in the jazz tradition rather than pop music, based on sounds, instant compos…
Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui
The sixth edition of the SYR series is a live recording of the April 12, 2003 benefit concert held at and for The Anthology Film Archives, the international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of avant-garde and independent cinema. In addition to screening films for the public, AFA houses a film museum, research library and art gallery.
The event, which raised money for the Archives and celebrated the life and work of avant-garde film maker Stan Brakhage, featured Sonic Youth prov…
Andre Sider Af Sonic Youth
Andre Sider Af Sonic Youth is an album by Sonic Youth with Mats Gustafsson and Merzbow. It is the eighth release in the SYR series. It was released on July 28, 2008. It will not be released on vinyl. The album is recorded the first July 2005 on the Roskilde Festival. The album title is in Danish and means "Other sides of Sonic Youth".
J’accuse Ted Hughes
Another great installment in Sonic Youth's SYR series, this one features two engrossing, lengthy pieces : 'J'Accuse Ted Hughes' and 'Agnes B Musique'. The former was recorded at All Tomorrow's Parties 2001, when the band were premiering material from their NYC Ghosts & Flowers album, and takes the form of a ragged twenty-two minute noise jam featuring free association lyrics by Kim Gordon ("I sent my poem to Good Housekeeping. They paid me ten dollars" she imparts). Meanwhile, the more composed,…