SYSY
Sonic Youth, Sonic Youth reissue – Starting off with that weird drum beat, the shivering guitars, and the galloping/limping rhythms, this is Sonic Youth as it was first ever hears on the SST original release. Yes, the drums are a bit jazzy, but it’s all there in all its sqruonking glory. The first track is “The Burning Spear”, a song that the band still plays, and the bass is heavy and groovy with a nice rhythm. We don’t get any real noise until halfway through the 3:45 song, a bit before the vocals come in. “I’m not afraid to say I’m scared.” “I Dreamed I Dream” has nice tonal tones, a cool little moody thing, Kim sings this spookily with Lee doing some background vocals. “She Is Not Alone” is one of those really cool, rugged songs with the jungle rhythms and the strange guitars. Very cool indeed. “I Don’t Want To Push It” scrubs and scrubs, with weird jungle rhythms, boogying busily on and on, much faster than the guitars; sounds pretty crazy, man, and a bit alarming for people who thought that the strange was normal – this is stranger than strange! “I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I… know.” Great crazy guitar noise and spidery innovation, with that crazy drumming the while while. YOIKS!!! “The Good And The Bad” ends the EP with some bass-led rhythms, discordant chords coming in, drone, that weird nearly-complete Sonic Youth sound is right there! THe longest song on the album, at over seven minutes, this is the one where they really stretch out and get going. Nice. Half of it is wanking around, and it is all instrumental.
But wait, there’s more! This is the expanded version, with eight new tracks, all of them live bits from September 18th 1981 that show the tracks coming together (the album was recorded December 1981 to January 1982). “Hard Work” is “I Don’t Want To Push It” in instrumental, and “Where The Red Fern Grows” is an early version of “I Dreamed I Dream”, which we get herein both a live version and an early studio version… “Loud And Soft” is a nutty long noise fest, as are the rest – very little singing, quite a lot of instrumental stuff on the live tracks. All of the live songs are interesting, and they have that experimental chugging sound. Nice.
The liner notes are great – we get pieces from all the members, as well as Glenn Branca; I’d say that the note from original drummer Richard Edson are definitely the most interesting, though, and Bryan Coley also has a long piece. Thurston just puts in something enigmatic (in blue ink!). Lots of pics of the band in 1981, looking very optimistic and youthful. Nice.