Speaking of John Cage this is a video from BBC4 of a televisied performance of 4'33'....rather interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAPDBs603Y

yes, it's very arty project on their own label. i remember when i knew about syr 1-4 existence and knew it only from internet and couldn't get them anywhere around i've lived that time. wanted to hear them so much. later, when i finaly bought syr4 as first of their syr series and played it i wasn't really impressed. than few months later listening to it again and find it's beauty, it's not easy every day listening, but it big and good experimental album even compare to the other syr vol. yeah, i'd say it must be big artictic experience to see it live. also i'm not suprised by first reaction of audience on that atp performance in london, hehe...just imagine.

its a piece of sheer art genius. its not a boogie all, hit frenzy or riff spectacular. its a beautiful collection of soundz. end of arguement!

SYR *** is genius

SYR 4 is genius

Having Never Written A Note For Percussion, Four6, Six, Pendulum Music... They are fantastic.

I just think that Voice Piece For Soprano (and maybe Piano Piece #13) shouldn't be there... But the rest is awesome

An interesting read about "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion" (James Tenney) 9:09

About the music

William Winant:

"[Sonic Youth] and I decided to do work by contemporary avant garde composers that we could all learn together. I chose most of the pieces and had Lee Ranaldo contact some of the composers and collect scores from the various publishers. I knew I'd have to find things that would work with these specific people and their instruments, either as a solo, quartet, quintet, or sextet. I chose graphic scores with open instrumentation and varying degrees of indeterminacy written into them. Plus, between myself, Jim O'Rourke and the composers who were at the session -- Takehisa Kosugi and Christian Wolff -- we were able to explain how the compositions were supposed to work.

"[Among the pieces we recorded was] James Tenney's Having Never Written a Note for Percussion from his postcard series. [Tenney] had all these compositions for solo instruments that were musical analogs of Zen koans, musical questions to ponder that would bring enlightenment. The one we did was originally for solo percussion, which I orchestrated for the band." ... more

I like the fact that they released such an 'out there' album. Some of it is excellent, other tracks are a bit too 'experimental' for me. It's better than SYR5 imho.

It's a stunning vinyl package!

I love a lot of the pieces on there but for the most part its meh.

& I find it hilarious that pitchfork gave it an 8.5 & NYCG&F a 0

It's at least as good as Master-Dik

What's up with the "dig ancient threads" thing?
Btw, all of their SYR releases are boundary-pushing records, they are a really brave band for putting out such recordings.

It's down to the fact that 'noobs' like to have their say. 'Noobs' have been told in no uncertain terms to search for old threads, rather than start a new thread that might replicate an old one.

this is one of their best albums!

ahah, well done

Genius. +- and Having Never Written a Note for Percussion blew my mind when I heard them for the first time. After seeing the 'sheet music' for them my mind was blown further.

Well, if it's utter crap, then one must conclude that virtually all of their SYR and side-project material over the past 15 years or so is utter crap, too.

'Pendulum Music' is my personal favourite. It works best on the CD version, coming right after little Coco's take on Yoko.

i'm gonna listen again tomorrow.

I got this right when it came out. And I had no idea what to make of it. Except "Piano Piece," which I liked right away. Maybe cuz of the video. Then slowly over the years I sort of read more about the pieces, gave the album more chances, and just tried to dig in. Now I like and appreciate it quite a bit. But it's still pretty low on my SY ranking list. I'd probably say it's my least favorite SYR. (Yes, including 5 since I've slowly learned to enjoy that one a LOT actually). But there's a lot of good stuff on SYR4. Except fucking "Pendulum Music" which is so obnoxious to me.

It's wonderful.

I just bought it on vinyl at long last.

I love this album, but I gotta say that the coolest thing about it is thinking that some kid who's only heard, like, Rather Ripped will randomly find this album and buy it and be like "What the FUCK?"

That makes me smile.

I would say that most of us have had a "WTF" moment with Sonic Youth ;)