Sonic Youth: J' Accuse Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes was a poet and the famed husband of Sylvia Plath. Why someone would accuse him of anything, other than making the wrong marital choice, is not clarified in the new SYR7 recording.

piggy-backing on a lot of what i wrote yesterday, J' Accuse Ted Hughes is a pair of live tracks recorded by the band proper in 2000 and 2003 (respectively?).

Kim handles the vocals on the first track "J'Accuse Ted Hughes", and her moaning is a surprising change from he speak-sing style. "You are a poet-tah/Take a wrong way hooooome-muh." Then drones, then Kim asserting "I will fuck you-huh" She sounds more like witch than gutter-punk.

23 minutes of drone. And the last 3 minutes are the best part, I'm sure this sounds sexier on vinyl.

Track two "Agnès B. Musique" is a vast departure from the standard SY catalog: chilled out ambient. after being accosted by KG (and sexually aroused?) "Musique" is a welcome change. The fuzzed out synth drones and sly guitar feedback may feel more comfortable on a Mogwai record perhaps, but no less interesting. And the last 5 minutes, once again, make the previous 14 minutes all the more worthwhile.

Original Silence

i often wonder how i came across some of the albums i save or download. The First Original Silence can be counted among that Bermuda triangle of memes that float through the transom. I certainly keep an eye out for new music, especially when there are only two tracks which is highly valuable when getting to the end of the monthly paydirt.

so OS (that's a palindrome, yo) is a[nother] noise assault from the Sonic Youth family tree featuring: thurston moore, jim o'rourke, free jazzers from the Thing, a pair from the Ex plus the bass player from Zu. (I'm not going to pretend i know their names, and had to look up who constituted OS. thanks wikipedia. but looking at the lineup, the lineage from find to download makes a bit more sense.)

the record is more akin to the Ex than any of the other players involved (see their 2000 release Exhibition), considering a howling sax and driving drums make up the backbone of the songs. i picked up In the Fishtank 5 which they recorded with Tortoise maybe a year or so ago. The Fishtank series pits two bands together to write and record 30 minutes of new music in a weeks time. the record has its moments, but is a bit uneven. I guess the beauty of The First...- with it's 2 songs spanning 60 minutes- is that while a track may loose focus, there is ample time to correct course and end on a high note. In The Fishtank is more structured and looses spontaneity in its formal construction.

but it should by no means be considered an Ex record just as it cannot be considered a Sonic Youth record because TM is involved. there's plenty of crunchy distorted guitars and other electronics to provoke stylistic meandering. the second and more intriguing track (running 45 minutes) begins with bleeps, becomes the soundtrack to your worst nightmares, resurfaces underwater, hits a mellow jazz streak only to twitch to death on a surgeon's table. glorious.

April Picks [II]: andrew [or Music For Train Passengers]

When I first moved out to NYC I listened to a lot of Sonic Youth. Somehow the music just meshed well with the drones and squeals of the subway, and they've become the quintessential New York band.

then i became directionless for a while, listening to whichever album was alphabetically next. But becuase I read on the train, and for a general lack of focus, I've been preferring to not have someone serenade me whist I read and ride. Or worse, I end up singing along in my head and find i've "read" five pages without actually following what i'e read. Ipso facto, I've been listening to a lot of instrumental (and the occasional instru-metal) records, which I'm sure my emusic account is beginning to reflect.

So, I find myself gravitating to the droning sounds of Rhys Chatham, two albums you'll find on eMusic. Two Gongs, which is just one 60 minute track of two gongs being rung at undulating force. The record is a test of tolerance and i find myself listening to it more often than is healthy (twice monthly is more than necessary.)

I also picked up Chatham's 3 CD set of Guitar Trio Is My Life! which is essentially one song performed live with different musicians and lasting anywhere from 10-20 minutes. I highly recommend it if you liked A Crimson Grail. However, I tired to listen to the Guitar Trio set straight through (approx 200 minutes in total duration) but only made it through the first half. Which was essentially four one-way trips to and from work. A great song, and it's remarkable the variations and permutations that occur with different lineups of musicians, but after the fifth or sixth time through even the most tolerant mind needs a dose of Rihanna.

So it should come as no surprise that i spent 18 of my 40 monthly tracks on the low, droning sounds of Stars of the Lid. I'll admit that picking up both records of ...and Their Refinement of the Decline (it's a 2 record set) is a bit much, but i'm a completest, so i couldn't just get the first. (I can't quite tell if there is much of a distinction between the albums. So i question why they bother splitting up the record when it's a digital download.)

while the record is very mellow, it sounds great played loud as hell with swirling strings, organs and synths. plus you get a better sense of the rich tapestry of sounds they are creating*. i hate to use the term "ambient" when defining this type of music as that tends to relegate it to background music, and undercuts the dense layers at work.

highly recommended.

oh, and emusic got a bit more dope with the addition of being able to preview tracks right in the browser, rather than having to open temp files in your preferred music player.

*while i agree with this, i just wanted to type "rich tapestry of sounds"