Sonic Youth
Hold That Tiger
CD Edition. Sonic Youth on Superior Viaduct!!! In October 1987, four months after the release of their critically acclaimed Sister LP, Sonic Youth showcased their latest work in a blistering set at Cabaret Metro, Chicago. The concert was introduced by Big Black's Steve Albini (who at the time was banned from the venue) and subsequently released as a semi-official bootleg under the title Hold That Tiger on writer/provocateur Byron Coley's impishly Geffen-baiting label Goofin' (years later the ban…
Hits Are For Squares
Hits Are for Squares is the first greatest hits album by American rock band Sonic Youth, released on June 10, 2008, by Starbucks Entertainment. The album features 15 songs spanning Sonic Youth's career since the release of their debut studio album in 1983, Confusion Is Sex. It also includes one new song: "Slow Revolution". The band intended to create a compilation album that appealed to the casual consumer. Hits Are for Squares received acclaim from critics, who noted it as a strong introduction…
Walls Have Ears
Double LP version. Color vinyl. "Culled from three 1985 gigs in the UK during a transitional and transcendent time in the band's story, Sonic Youth's The Walls Have Ears appeared/disappeared as a 2LP set in 1986, not just a live album but an artful tapestry full of live experimentation with songs, between-song tape segues, darkness, humor and audio verité. It's now issued for the first time officially under the band's auspices.""The '85 shows were the second time the band appeared on UK soil, Br…
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…
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…
Slaapkamers Met Slagroom
The Dutch title that literally translates to "Bedrooms with Whipped Cream" and harkens back to the band's experimental days. On three tracks spread over 28 minutes, Sonic Youth work out extended, hypnotic themes for non-existent psychological case studies. The title track, the longest of the three "songs" included here, opens with a swirl of sound before eventually settling into a 17 minute cavalcade of guitar effects overlaying a particularly "in-your-face" drum sound. The results are simultane…
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,…