BIOGRAPHY

Biography: Sonic Youth marked both the end of the "new wave" and the beginning of an era that was building on the new wave's innovations. In fact, the Sonic Youth were initially more experimental and ambitious than most of the new wave acts. What broke with the new wave was their aim to transcend the cultural stereotypes of their epoch and explore new musical forms while remaining faithful to the nihilistic and alienated ethos of the punk generation. Sonic Youth inherited a world from the punks and the new-wave intellectuals, but Sonic Youth did not inherit their music. Initially, as documented by the instrumental The Good And The Bad, on their debut EP Sonic Youth (1982), Sonic Youth's music sprung from the repetitive style of Glenn Branca's guitar symphonies, from creative jazz and from progressive-rock. Three quarters of the band would remain stable over the years: guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo and bassist Kim Gordon. Their milieu (the art galleries) harked back to the Velvet Underground, not to the CBGB's and the Max's Kansas City (where the new wave was born). The tracks on Confusion Is Sex (1983) were geometric, percussive, obsessive sonatas with abject vocals (reminiscent of the "no wave"); tortured and funereal ceremonies that emanated a sense of psychic unbalance in a totalitarian society; psychodramas that fused gothic, tribal and industrial sources..

The guitar overtones became less bleak and almost transcendent on Bad Moon Rising (1985), fearuting Bob Bert on drums. It is still an exhasting journey through urban hell that runs the gamut from spectral psychedelia to sheer horror (Death Valley 99). Contrary to appearances, Sonic Youth had never abandoned the song format. Their line-up, after all, was a classic rock quartet, and even their most experimental pieces were centered upon a core theme (and rarely extended beyond 4-5 minutes). Evol (1986), featuring new drummer Steve Shelley, began to bridge their intense paranoia and pop sensibility (Expressway To Your Skull). This program was completed by two albums that found a new "classic" equilibrium, Sister (1987) and Daydream Nation (1988). The latter marked the end of the road for their combination of glacial and detached vocals, dissonant guitars, chaotic counterpoint, tribal beats. The suspense of Eric's Trip, Teenager Riot and Total Trash was grounded in the semiotics of rock'n'roll, via sonic icons such as Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground. Ensuing albums failed to improve over this model and failed to find the same magical balance of elements: Goo (1990), Dirty (1992), perhaps the best of the "pop" phase, Experimental Jet Set Trash And No Star (1994), which sounded like a senile version of Sister, the self-indulgent Washing Machine (1995), perhaps their most cohesive work of the 1990s. Guitar terrorist Jim O'Rourke joined the band for Invito Al Cielo (1998). Both Ranaldo and Moore have performed and released avantgarde music, often in collaborations with jazz musicians. Sonic Youth's legacy rests with its stories of alienation, sex and death which framed moral issues (both at the personal and at the social level) from a cynical and egocentric perspective. They repudiated the epos of the 1960s for a subdued obituary of vices. The core theme of their music was existential confusion.

Dirty Windows (Atavistic, 2000) is Ranaldo's melancholy diary. Accompanied by Epic Soundtracks, Ranaldo turns folksinger and vents his anxiety for society. While never surrendering his abrasive feedbacks, Ranaldo sounds and looks sixty years ago, belonging to the generation of Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan. Sonic Youth perform works by modern avant-garde composers such as John Cage Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros and Yoko Ono on Goodbye 20th Century (SYR, 1999), a two-disc set, the latest in a series of unconventional, mostly instrumental releases on their own label. The score for Takehisa Kosugi's +- consists of 10 lines of mostly plus and minus symbols, indicating vaguely when players should build up sounds or relax. Kosugi and Wolff joined the band in the studio to help the band interpret their compositions. Six for New Time for Sonic Youth was composed specifically for the band by Pauline Oliveros. .

Three Incredible IDeas (Auditorium, 2001) is a collaboration between Moore and cellist Walter Prati and trombonist Giancarlo Schiffini. TM/MF (Sarah Coltier Gallery, 2001) is a collaboration with painter Marco Fusinato (he painted while Moore was improvising). Live At Easthampton Town Hall (JMZ, 2001) is a collaboration with harpist Zena Parkins and guitarist Nels Cline, and easily the best of the batch. .

NYC Ghosts & Flowers (Checkered Past, 2000) is an interesting cross-cultural experiment that grafts beat poetry onto noise-rock. But too much spoken-word (and not exactly revelatory) and and too much instrumental doodling make this one of their least remarkable records. It sounds like the band put it together without much conviction. Too bad, because Free City Rhymes (a delicately shifting twin strumming trance that lets a melodic theme appear and disappear) is a wonderful reminder of their "noisy" past, and the punchy Renegade Princess could have been a Sister showcase. The textures of the spoken pieces are intriguing, but hardly revolutionary. Sonic Youth's weakness has always been the vocals, and improved musical skills can only make it more evident. Kim Gordon/ DJ Olive/ Ikue Mori (SYR, 2000) is Gordon's avantgarde record. .

Sonic Youth's Murray Street (Geffen, 2002) continues the trilogy "about the cultural history of lower Manhattan". The band has permanently added Jim O'Rourke on bass (not to mention the Borbetomagus on saxophones), while Kim Gordon switches to guitar, thereby creating a three-guitar sound with Moore and Ranaldo. Ranaldo's 11-minute Karen Revisited is the stand-out track, the ideal meeting point for the Sonic Youth's original guitar mayhem and O'Rourke's post-rock abstractions. However, the lengthy instrumental doodling of Rain on Tin shows how the idea can as easily go wrong. Moore's The Empty Page (and Disconnection Notice) and Gordon's Plastic Sun and Sympathy for the Strawberry are also notable, although hardly major additions to the canon. Thankfully, the Sonic Youth avoid spoken-word pieces and do not let Kim Gordon sing. .

Sonic Nurse (Geffen, 2004) is laid-back melodic background music for the post-noise generation. Mellow, tooth-less and formulaic, Ranaldo's and Moore's songs aim for a new center of mass, a new reference point. The old Sonic Youth-esque song format is kept alive only by Kim Gordon (who was largely aloof on previous albums). She is the one who leads the six-minute sonic attack of Pattern Recognition and Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream (originally titled Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream). The instrumental pillars of the band sail towards a different horizon. WIth Dripping Dream, the seven-minute Stones and the eleven-minute I Love You Golden Blue, reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams, they demonstrate how they have perfected a personal variation on the format of the acid-rock jam, a praxis anchored to instrumental dexterity and an almost transcendent aesthetics of mood. Noise-rock has not exhausted its potentialities. Hidros 3 (Smalltown Supersound, 2004), dedicated to Patti Smith, is a live improvisation with saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, featuring also Loren Mazzacane Connors. Text Of Light (Starlight Furniture, 2004) is a collaboration among guitarists Alan Licht Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, turntablists Christian Marclay and DJ Olive, drummer William Hooker and saxophonist Ulrich Krieger. Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui (SYR, 2005) contains three lengthy improvisations with percussionist Tim Barnes (Tower Recordings). And now.... New album title and tracklist revealed
March 14, 2006
Sonic Youth new album "Rather Ripped" is due for a June release and will include the following songs:

Reena
Incinerate
Do You Believe in Rapture?
Sleepin' Around
What a Waste
Jams Run Free
Rats
Turquoise Boy
Lights Out
The Neutral
Pink Steam
Or
Geffen Records will issue the CD edition while the band's own Goofin' Records will release the vinyl edition of the new album. The band is planning a summer tour which will include a a stop at this summer's Lollapalooza.