The Eternal:: Buy Early Get Now
 

Save The Date : Sonic Youth - ‘The Eternal’, Buy Early Get Now Launches April 28

March 3rd, 2009 at 9:21 am by The Management

 

(all SY photos in this post by Chris Habib)
As announced previously, the new Sonic Youth double LP/CD/digital album, ‘The Eternal’ is coming out on June 9 (link to original album announcement) . However, the album will be available to those taking part in Matador’s Buy Early Get Now campaign on April 28.

 

Along with your preorder of ‘The Eternal’ on LP or CD, you’ll get an instant stream of the album, and later (through the auspices of the U.S. Postal Service) a bonus limited edition live LP* culled from Sonic Youth’s July 4, 2008 show in Battery Park, NYC, along with an exclusive poster. Additional MP3’s will follow (but not from the post office).

 

As with prior Buy Early Get Now campaigns, the album can be preordered from a trusted local retailer or directly from Matador starting April 28.
Though the full list of participating record stores will be available on April 28, if you’re interested in being involved, please contact Mike Venutolo at Matador Direct (mike@matadordirect.com)

 

A separate but equally thrilling variation on Buy Early Get Now for our friends in the United Kingdom and other territories will be announced in this space shortly.
*- while supplies last
Though we’re keeping a rather tight lid on the musical contents to ‘The Eternal’ between now and late April, there’s a a somewhat truncated preview that’s just been posted at Newsweek.com.

^^ this is for US only?????

Exclusive: First Audio From Sonic Youth's New CD, "The Eternal"
Seth Colter Walls

Photo: Andrew Kesin

A couple weeks back, we received an invitation from Matador Records to come listen to Sonic Youth's latest record, "The Eternal," over at the label's Manhattan HQ, and I was happy to accept on behalf of NEWSWEEK. Halfway through the listening session, though, I found myself a touch aggravated.

It wasn't because the band's latest batch of experimental jams was of poor quality. As anticipated, "The Eternal" brings the goods—a none-too-surprising fact, given that most everyone seems to agree this band has been on a righteous hot streak in their third decade of activity. What grated was the understanding that this album wouldn't be on sale until June 9.

Way too long to wait to hear it again. So we fixed that (kinda).

The pitch to Matador's publicist went as follows. The Youth are all cool and avant-garde, right? They dig William Burroughs' "cut-up" novels. They've provided musical accompaniment to Stan Brakhage's abstract-expressionist films. Thus, shouldn't the band want to produce a wild, free-for-all audio collage out of their record that we could post on Newsweek.com?

The publicist said Matador has already planned another one of its trademark "Buy Early, Get Now" promotions for this release, in which fans who pay up front (before the online leaks begin) wind up with extra bonus goodies and a full audio stream of the record ahead of its official release date. But he added that plan wouldn't kick off until April, at the earliest. In the meantime, he agreed that the idea of a sound collage could be cool.

A week later the publicist emailed to say that the band was in the studio working on the "mélange" track. When we received their finished product, it was clear that this meticulously edited two-and-a-half-minute curio wasn't simply tossed off. It is, in its own way, a discrete kind of Sonic Youth noise workout, one that draws from the delicious diversity of tracks on "The Eternal." Overall, the record benefits from a wilder, more enthusiastic palette of sounds than on some of the band's recent major-label offerings. Plus, this is their first long-player to feature the work of ex-Pavement bassist Mark Ibold. (Kim Gordon also plays some bass, but for the most part, she switched over to guitar.) Other than that, the best description of "The Eternal" might be this one lyric from the Lee Ranaldo-penned track "What We Know" (if my hastily scribbled notes are right): "It's not a quiet meditation."

We'll likely write more about the record closer to its release, but for now, you can listen to this Youth-authored mashup (and presumably blog about it, since our media player is embeddable). Check it out, below:


newsweek link.

kick ass. Do you think the "mp3's to follow" will be mp3's of the Live LP? It'd be nice to keep the vinyl version pristine and throw the mp3's on my... mp3 PLAYER.

uhm
not that kick ass to be honest. I hoped for something more obscure rather than a limited edition of something we basically already "know". Ha ha, I heard it live, go figure..
Still curious about the poster.

"A separate but equally thrilling variation on Buy Early Get Now for our friends in the United Kingdom and other territories will be announced in this space shortly."

And this is intriguing, btw.

Kim's vocal on 'Sacred Trickster' sounds great, and Lee's are good too, but Thurstons vocals on the other tunes sound horrible.

After RR and TOTE my expectations for the next album are really low, but parts of this don't sound too bad actually. I really hope I'll like it, but... I don't know.

After two really solid albums 20 yrs into their career, my expectations would be low too.

I'm so sick of the RR/etc bashing. Let's see you make a better album.

very awesome, this all sounds very interesting

What's your problem? This is a message board and I'm stating my opinion, which happens to be different to yours. Grow up and learn to deal with it.

edit: I'm not going to argue this in a thread about the upcoming album.

I'm just saying I'm sick of every SY-related thread having the comment "as long as it's better than RR" or something to that extent. It's just kind of tiring already.

I just don't get WHY there's SO MUCH hatred for RR. Is it their best? No. Is it a P. Diddy produced sellout featuring cameos from The Rock and Dave Matthews? No. So what's the big effing deal? It has some really good songs, and some okay ones.

it sounds kind of a cross between RR and one of their earlier albums... like maybe Dirty.. Sounds poppy but hopefully sublime - cant really tell that much from such a chopped clip.

I haven't listened to any clips. I dnt think I'm gonna. I'm looking forward to hearing it all in its entirety.

thanks Moshe!

yeah, so is this buy early... for americans only at the moment?

It sounds early nineties with a mixture of RR and SN

I second this. When will we know the details for the european promotion. Hopefully the bonus LP will be maintained! The poster would be sweet too.

oh yeah and SY won't be what they used to be or what you expect them to be SY will be SY in 2009.....I'd love to have Washing Machine II myself, but hey...

pretty hard to listen to this collage, and frustrating too...
anyway, it's always nice to hear new sonic sounds!

And hopefully it's able to pay with paypal on matador's site.

doesn't even remotely sound like it, unfortunately, but some pleasant hooks here. i'm sure i'll dig this. Sounds very upbeat.