http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-rev...c-hearts.shtml
Sonic Youth / Ciccone Youth / Thurston Moore
Sonic Youth / The Whitey Album / Psychic Hearts
[Neutral; 1982 / Blast First; 1988 / DGC; 1995; r: Geffen / Universal; 2006]
Rating: 8.2 / 7.8 / 7.6</B>
Another trio of remastered Sonic Youth-related reissues has surfaced, offering a glance at the band and its side projects amid this current period of serious downtown New York nostalgia and speculation. Why certain projects and albums were chosen over others isn't clear, but for now Geffen/Universal has spit-shined the 1982 self-titled debut EP, 1989's Madonna-fixated
The Whitey Album (credited to Ciccone Youth), and Thurston's 1995 solo debut,
Psychic Hearts. Beyond the requisite history lesson and catalogue gap-filling, the triad's dropped in anticipation of the band's 15th studio album,
Rather Ripped, which is out in June, and maybe as a nod to Ecstatic Peace!, Moore's excellent experimental and noise label teaming with Universal.
All three albums have their moments, but the five-song debut gives the most band for your buck. Packaged with extensive (and worthwhile) liner notes from Byron Coley, Glenn Branca, original Sonic Youth drummer Richard Edson, and a note from Moore regarding the relation of reggae and Can to the tracks contained therein.
Sonic Youth is also bolstered by seven live tracks and an early demo, all from 1981. Obviously more primitive than the quartet's later work, the recordings offer a ghostly, mesmerizing locked groove. My favorite aspect of the EP is the band's willingness to take its time: "Burning Spear" tries a hand at post-punk dub that swivels with Gordon's bass line and Edson's drum breaks. As Coley thoughtfully notes, that song's amazing sound of an airplane lift-off or wind filtering through a crumbled lofts is actually Ranaldo's "contact mic'd electric drill" filtered through wah. On the track, Moore's vocals are haunting and urgent, like he's pinned to mattress on the floor of his East Village apartment: "I'm not afraid to say I'm scared/ In my bed I'm deep in prayer/ I trust the speed/ I love the fear."
This is SY at their most icy; it's an erudite, windswept set, wrapping distortion inside danceable half-frozen Liquid Liquid beats. Even the EP's hand-drum rocker, "I Don't Want to Push It", is a gust of slush in an Bowery puddle. Moore takes over bass duties on the lengthy, jumpy instrumental closer, "The Good and the Bad". Elsewhere, the bonus live stuff swelters: a super elastic "Burning Spear" is impressive and a rip-roaring version of "She Is Not Alone" contrasts the restrained studio take.
If
Sonic Youth's a chilly midnight haze,
The Whitey Album tilts toward a confetti-lined karaoke jamboree. Finding the crew, along with Mike Watt (who offers liner notes penned in 1993), adopting Madonna's actual surname, Ciccone Youth are hopped-up on hand claps, drum machinations, lo-fi industrial, repetitious loops, and wily cover tunes. All that, and you get to hear Moore rap. Critics tend to highlight the sight gags like the meta "Two Cool Rock Chicks Listening to Neu", with Gordon and friend talking over a stereo about the possibilities of managing Dinosaur (Mascis shows up with a humongous guitar wail), that minute of Cagean silence, and Watt's cow-polk cover version of "Burnin' Up", which hits me like a disco take on his cover of Daniel Johnston's "Walking the Cow". (Historical note: Greg Ginn lays down an extra guitar.) That's fine-- these oddities are pretty choice-- but there are much better musical bits.
Something you might not remember:
The Whitey Album's packed with gorgeous instrumentals like "Macbeth", which piles up drum machines, fuzzing guitars, and catchy Cure-like chord rings. Opener "Needle-Gun" is Fat Albert-style No-Wave. There's also a bit of self-sampling: "Platoon II"'s echo drums and gentle guitar drabs are a vocal-free take of the Gordon-fronted "G-Force". Of course, you'll also hear Gordon's cheesy, but wonderfully droll "Addicted to Love" and their most famous cover, an echo-dub implosion of Madonna's "Into the Groove", recast as "Into the Groovey".
Released after
Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star and joined by Steve Shelley on drums and Tim Foljahn on second guitar, Moore's femme-themed solo debut,
Psychic Hearts, is a collection of often-beautiful sunset guitar rock. Of his vocal turns, my favorite is the caffeinated, teen-angst/dysfunction of the propulsive title track. Moore's vocals are also particularly swoon-worthy on the whispery "Pretty Bad" and breathy "Ono Soul".
Most of
Psychic Hearts, however, works because of the simple repetitions of instrumentals like lilting opener "Blues From Beyond the Grave" and the slightly exeunt and the gently paranoid "(I Got a) Catholic Block" patterning that surfaces between Moore's voice in "Feathers". The centerpiece is the 20-minute instrumental exeunt, "Elegy for All the Dead Rock *s". The track's distinct movements mingle fluidly, swerving into a sideways cascade before bursting and blooming until notes sharpen and a final tidal wave arcs and releases. The noise implosions of its final third are anti-climactic, but after some gentle plucks and slides, Moore grabs his pick and glides into that dark night as gorgeously as he began, only this time with more triumphal drums. God, Sonic Youth's catalogue is vast. For even the biggest fans, it can take a reissue to suggest refocusing on something you've previously taken for granted. (Proust fans are nodding in agreement.)
Psychic Hearts was, for whatever reason, still pretty embedded in my memory, but I had mostly forgotten the precise, trashcan regality of the EP.
The Whitey Album, something I'd relegated to the Mr. T Experience section of my memory, was the biggest surprise: Collecting dust in my closet, this fucker has some incredibly catchy and flat-out kick ass and moving moments. If you've never heard any of this stuff, take a peak at what your guitar heroes were up to when they were a tad younger. If, like me, you assumed you'd moved past it: Go back and realize you haven't.