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12"
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SYR 002LP
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2024 repress. "Unfettered by studio time limitations with their own home base of Echo Canyon, SYR 2 shows Sonic Youth chasing the shadows of predecessor SYR 1 and the series' distinct aesthetic: total exploration of freedom and further discovery. While the cover art evokes European contempo classical releases of yore, Sonic Youth distinctively reinvent their own personal output potential the way those kinds of records revolutionized a previously defined genre. Their ethos of utilizing the roots of the Ramones, Television, VU, Stooges, and No Wave to shape their first decade now find the band in later years bullet-pointing fascination in AMM, MEV, improvised music, free jazz and other outer-limit/organic refractions of traditional rock. While Sonic Youth's spontaneous-creation moments had long been showcased in their recordings, Peel Sessions, and live, SYR 2 sums up the band's state in 1997: rolling lots of tape, fine-tuning ideas and presenting great moments of exciting new directions, allowing deep-listener type fans to gain better insight into their sound process. Add to that the alchemy of Jim O'Rourke's gradual entry into the core band which would soon be fully on display for SYR 3, and this series is an X-ray of evolution, dissection and reconstruction."
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12"
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SYR 001LP
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2024 repress. "While 1995's Washing Machine LP moniker was a thinly-veiled jab at the corporate aesthetic, their major label relationship was indeed a curious buzzpoint of talk on the street after their intake to DGC in 1990. The Anagrama EP became the first in a series of the SYR label's Perspective Musicales releases seemingly cementing Sonic Youth's connectivity to an increasing public awareness in experimental composers of the 20th century (French or otherwise). It was clear that both Sonic Youth's stature in progressive music, aided by now unlimited taperoll time thanks to a home base studio downtown established after their Lollapalooza stint, gave the band plenty of trailblazing time for their self-examination of untraveled avenues. Anagrama unfolds into nine minutes of delicate textures, starting with thick drone segueing into moments reminiscent of the post-crescendo flutter/comedown of 'Marquee Moon's' trail-out; Thurston, Lee and Kim's guitars all circling round each other taking delicate pokes and stabs before drifting into some post-rock rhythmic moves tapered with complementary percussive guidance from Steve Shelley. The finale track 'Mieux: De Corrosion' is a real pedal-palatte showcase. Here, Plutonian guitar wash flanges upwards to buoy a myriad of colorful eruptions of amp-spuzz, chopped up tone blasts and general confusion. Out of the blue, some metallic one-note choogle kicks in and threatens to explode into some Judas Priestly motion, before it all sputters into aural glass showers, clang, and finally a ferocious wave of more flange hiss that crashes down on a dime. This initial foray into SY's Perspectives Musicales series continued onward with releases featuring other co-conspirators, peaking with the ambitious 2CD Goodbye 20th Century that finally connects the band into full-on interpretations of other composers' pieces (as well as displaying their own new ones). The whole series is not so much an outlet for another 'side' of the band, but a run that went hand in hand building new approaches of songcraft onto their own, more overground direction which included Jim O'Rourke, adding additional density to A Thousand Leaves and other LPs of his era. Fans of the '86 Spinhead Sessions as well as the recently-exhumed later jams of In/Out/In will take in the sounds of SYR1 with glee."
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LP
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SYR 009LP
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2022 repress. Originally released in 2011. "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 soundtrack release, sometimes montaging multiple tracks together, other times extending cues into new sonic realms. The film premiered at Cannes in May 2010 and opened nationwide in France."
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LP
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SYR 003LP
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2023 repress. "This third installment of the SYR series issued in 1998 continues to showcase the home-brewed outer explorations of Sonic Youth running concurrent to their busy mid-decade major label run with the Washing Machine LP, world tours, and Lollapalooza engagements. As the millenium neared, SY took time to investigate a particular interest in exploring its identity within a 20th Century classical/compositional spirit (already evidenced on SYR 1 and 2), the opportunity to build its own homebase studio environs, and further blur barriers between its pure rock/avant heritage and the possibilities to dissect and rebuild new/organic Euro-flavored directives in their sound. Jim O'Rourke, already long-steeped in this universe via work with Gastr Del Sol, Faust, Henry Kaiser, Tony Conrad and others became a perfect collaborative foil to bring into Echo Canyon to explore this expanding playground of limitless, improvised potential. Taking some downtime from a NYC event involving Takehisa Kosugi and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (of which Thurston was also a participant), the new SY+1 rolled tape in house and tackled adventurous avenues rife with subtle guitar/amp/synth/trumpet pulse, evocative whispered vocal textures from Kim Gordon, and tasteful tonalities in percussion augmented by Steve Shelley. Adding to the mystery are compositional credits in Esperanto (Wharton Tiers' engineer credit being that of the "Ĉefsoninĝeniero"), and track titles such as "Invito Al Ĉielo", "Hungara Vivo", and "Radio-Amatoroj". Ringing in near the one-hour mark, the collaboration eventually opened the doors to O'Rourke's full-time recruitment into the Sonic fold for the next seven years. His tenure included helping direct studio hardware acquisition, and augmenting the band instrumentally into denser, deeper scapes that wedded with their songcraft, as evidenced on their next full LP A Thousand Leaves. A further SYR release in 1999 with O'Rourke and other collaborators taking a headfirst dive into 20th Century interpretations followed, but this SYR 3 jammer is the moment some lights switched on brightly, to new peaks to come."
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CD
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SYR 006CD
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"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 providing an improvised instrumental collaboration with silent Brakhage films. The band performed with drummer/percussionist Tim Barnes (Essex Green, Jukeboxer, Silver Jews)."
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CD
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SYR 003CD
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"Third installment in the home-recorded, self-released series. CD packaged in mini-gatefold cardboard sleeve, vinyl pressed on the clearest of wax, all text in Esperanto. Three wild, spontaneous, improvised pulsations that exemplify contemporary abstraction at its most uninhibited." A 57 minute free form organic excursion that totally sounds like Sonic Youth without ever sounding anything like Sonic Youths' past output & an excellent continuation of this series.
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