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Yes, there is a connection in the way the some of the songs are musically composed. And it's been discussed here before, and I believe I was the one on that previous occasion (before CL even posted in the particular bygone thread) to bring up his Bumbershoot '99 recording of the instrumental versions. I'm fairly certain it's even been remarked on in band interviews in at least an abbreviated "rock is dead" way. And Dead-Air, Anagrama the song too sounds like a sort of proggier, spacier, more laid-back Confusion in many ways.
For lack of a lengthy explantation, it's easiest just to remark that the guitars once again showed a tendency to be played, in some respects, more like a percussion instrument of sorts.
Although bear in mind please that CIS is much more primally-charged and primitively expressed. And of course it was "immediately" recorded whereas NYCG&F was more deliberately thought out and conceptualized.
Then there's quite simply the passage of time between each to consider which obviously influenced both the overall "felt tone" of the songs and the lyrical content of the songs written for NYCG&F.
So even though it may not be all that readily apparent, there are some interesting similarities.
By contrast, examine, for instance, Goo. It's mainly written in the F#F#F#F#EB tuning. Therefore, to make a (well, sort of) barre chord, one just lays their pointing finger over the one fret to play a modified "dirty" major chord form, much like as is the case with a "proper" open tuning. The heavy gauges and the unison strings (many other albums deal mainly with unison pairs) give the guitar the Sonic Youth tone that makes it sound markedly different from a major chord played in standard. The songs are written with rock chord progressions, only they are largely rock progressions done up with Sonic Youth's somewhat unique "jamming the note" aesthetic par excellence.
This isn't the same case with the guitars on CIS or Sonic Death. To a lesser extent, one could also include the first one in the assessment, and even though much of it is in standard. Go ahead and count Bad Moon Rising as well. And lastly add NYCG&F to the list. On these mentioned in particular, there are, in a sense, the most arguably creative shapes (oddballs that have less to do with musical necessity) that figuratively have very little to do with rock progressions. Sure, there are ostinato motifs, but the abundant repetitive elements tend to be more noise and less rock.
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