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Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth: Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star

Sonic Youth at a glance...

Hometown: New York, NY
Year Formed: 1980

Members:

Kim Gordon -bass, guitars, vocals
Lee Ranaldo -guitars, vocals
Thurston Moore -guitars, vocals
Steve Shelley -drums
with...
J Mascis, Chuck D, Don Fleming -vocals
Nick Sansano, Don Fleming -percussion

Related artists:
Ciccone Youth, Two Dollar Guitar, Free Kitten, Lee Ranaldo, William Hooker, Velvet Monkeys, The Crucifucks, Cat Power, Nels Cline, Thurston Moore, In Limbo, The Coachmen, Mats Gustafsson, William Winant, J Mascis, Kim Deal, Pavement, Half Japanese, Mike Watt, Borbetomagus, Shonen Knife, Puzzled Panthers, Jim O'Rourke

Notes:
Sonic Youth rose triumphantly out of New York's early 80s No-Wave scene. Originally fueled by the ripping guitar of Glenn Branca alumns Ranaldo and Moore, Sonic Youth grew into - and maintain their stature as - a rock 'n' roll aural-experimentation unit beyond compare. Sometimes melodic, sometimes atonal, but rarely boring, the band have covered a lot of ground in its nearly 20-year history. From the early scene-splashing Confusion is Sex (1983) to the more polished EVOL (1986), the band's early evolution is apparent. 1988's epic Daydream Nation secured Sonic Youth's status as a legendary, visionary band which would forever leave its mark on rock 'n' roll. Subsequent albums and tours have served to bolster the band's popularity, even when not establishing any new plateaus of creativity. More recently, offshoot releases (like 1997's Perspectives Musicales series) have shown evidence of a continuing interest in experimentation. A perpetually active band, Sonic Youth will surely entertain and challenge for years to come.

Links:
Read Ink Blot's tribute to Sonic Youth, "Sonic Truth"
Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth
Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star
Geffen, Released 1994
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth's members have always had their ears cocked, ready and willing to deal with whatever sounds were coming out of the underground. When they recorded this album in 1993, the crude bubbling up out of the ground was shrowded in tape hiss; lo-fi revolutionaries like Sebadoh, Peter Jefferies, and Guided By Voices asserted the priorities of creative song craft and spontaneity over those of production values and calculated presentation. Sonic Youth embraced these bands as peers, and their influence is evident on Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star.

The quartet wrote shorter songs and devoted less space to textural exploration. It was a risky strategy -- who wants to hear a Sonic Youth record without cool guitar sounds? Fortunately, songs like Kim Gordon's tense "Bull In the Heather" and Moore's "Tokyo Eye" (a tribute to singer Yamatsuka Eye of The Boredoms) don't entirely forego those trademarked chiming harmonics and churning roars. They're just compacted into tighter than usual structures -- "In the Mind Of The Bourgeois Reader" manages to squeeze a scorching rave-up into just two and a half minutes.

Neither an alt-rock contender nor a bridge to the avant-garde, this record seems to have been forgotten, but that's an oversight worth redressing.

If you like Sonic Youth, check out:
Sonic Youth Sister
Sonic Youth Washing Machine
Sonic Youth Bad Moon Rising
Sonic Youth Dirty
Sonic Youth EVOL
Sonic Youth Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth Goodbye 20th Century
Sonic Youth Confusion Is Sex
Sonic Youth Goo
Sonic Youth NYC Ghosts & Flowers
The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground And Nico
Guided By Voices Bee Thousand
Blonde Redhead Blonde Redhead
Mogwai Come On Die Young
Nels Cline and Thurston Moore Pillow Wand
William Hooker Hard Time
Pavement Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Sonic Youth

-- Bill Meyer

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