SYR releases 1-4, A Thousand Leaves, and the live recordings Hold That Tiger and Live at the Continental Club are now available for download from emusic. Load up on these if you follow this link to 50 FREE MP3s!

VIDEO FOR THE EMPTY PAGE ONLINE

The video for the song Empty Page is now online in our video archive. Click here, then choose High Bandwidth, and scroll to the bottom.

The Wire has chosen Murray Street the top album of 2002. In the same issue, Lee, Thurston, and Kim all enumerate their own favorites of the year.

CMJ has also chosen Murray Street as the number one album of the year.

Entertainment weekly has named the album amongst the top 10 of 2002. Also look for a big upcoming feature on SY in said magazine which will be published in the next few weeks.

And, as mentioned some time ago, Rolling Stone lists Murray Street in its top 50 of the year.

PIX FROM RECHER THEATER 11/24/02 ONLINE

Some good B+W shots from last month's meltdown of the Charm City available here.

ROLLING STONE: MURRAY ST. AMONGST TOP 50 OF '02

In the issue of Rolling Stone which will hit the newstands early in December, Murray Street is amongst the top 50 albums of the year.

SONIC YOUTH IN GUITAR PLAYER

The November 2002 issue of Guitar Player contains a fairly long article about SY, including interviews with Thurston, Lee, and Jim. The pictures look better in the print mag, but you can read the article online.

UPCOMING SOLO EVENTS

Folks in NYC and Spain will have a chance in the next while to catch some extracirricular action by Thurston, Jim and Lee.

On December 5, Thurston and Byron Coley will be amongst the readers at a McSweeney's event at Galapogos in Brooklyn. The two will read from Great Rock Texts of their determination and will "present their assay of David Bowie's discography, in tanka form." For more scoop on the event, click.

On December 6 and 7, Jim will be performing in his band Loose Fur, the linup of which is Jim, Jeff Tweedy, and Glenn Kotche. Both performances will occur at St. Ann's in Brooklyn.

Also on December 7, Lee will be performing in duo with Rafael Toral at the Spain Mem Festival in Bilbao.

On December 12, Thurston will be performing with Foot, his group with Don Fleming and Jim Dunbar. They will perform at the Swiss Institute in New York City.

Now you know.

DEMONLOVER OST EUROPE RELEASE 11/18/02

The bande originale du film Demonlover de Olivier Assayas will be released throughout Europe on the 18th of November. Included are 8 new and previously unreleased Sonic Youth titles:

Move Away
Control Freak
Safe in Hell
Electric Noisefield
Slambient Desire
Melodikim
Teknikal Illprovisation
Superdead

The process of the collaboration between Assayas and SY is explained in a long essay by Assayas in the CD booklet.

No word yet about a U.S. theatrical or soundtrack release.

JAPANESE TOUR FEBRUARY 2003

From Feb 17 to 22, Sonic Youth will be riffin' across Japan. Check out the calender for the dates, or follow the link to buy tickets.

SY FALL EAST COAST DATES

Sonic Youth will be performing five nights in four venues over two weekends late this November. Here's the deal:

November 22 Northampton, Calvin Theater
November 23 Providence Lupo's
November 24 Baltimore Recher Theatre
November 29 + 30 New York, Irving Plaza SOLD OUT

Hope you can make it.

EMPTY PAGE VIDEO ON 120 MINUTES

Sunday the 24th of November, the video for Empty Page will make its television debut on the 120 Minutes program on the MTV2 network. If you like staying up late on a school nite, or if you like close-ups of eyes, tune in.

HAINO KEIJI/LEE RANALDO/JIM BLACK AT TONIC

Friday Nov. 15 8pm. As per the Tonic site: Improv Set With Jim Black (drums / percussion), Haino Keiji & Lee Ranaldo (guitar). Keiji Haino is a Japanese guitarist, etc. improvisor of the most extreme 'nature'. Tonight is a first-ever meeting between Haino, Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, and Alas No Axis/Laurie Anderson/Pachora drummer Jim Black.

SONIC YOUTH AND THE EX IN THE FISHTANK

In The Fishtank is a project of Konkurrent Onafhankelijk Muziekbedrijf. In this collection of short-length recordings, Konkurrent invites bands to whom they are strongly related to record while touring Holland. These bands are given 2 days to put down on 24 tracks 20-30 minutes of whatever they like: regular songs, funny versions, improvised pieces. The Fishtank offers a space for expression and experimentation.

Members of SY (Lee/Thurston/Steve/Jim plus Willie Winant) met up with Luc and Terrie from longtime Dutch compatriots The Ex during the summer 2001 European tour for Goodbye 20th Century. Also participating in the sessions were members of legendary Dutch improvisers collectief I.C.P.: Han Bennink, Ab Baars, and Wolter Wierbos.

Various combinations of players took turns tag-team improvising in a studio in Holland; all recorded in one afternoon, the members of The Ex then undertook to select the tracks which are presented on the CD.

OUTSIDE MY WINDOW THE CITY IS NEVER SILENT

Lee has just released a new LP. Some people may have seen it available for sale at certain venues on the US tour. It is now available online from pinktoes.net. Here's the details as per Lee himself:

Outside My Window the City is Never Silent: A Bestiary

This compendium utilizes selected material from the following titles: Amarillo Ramp, The Bridge Deva, Spain; Fragments El Oido, first computer piece: the View From Here [Root (for TM)] Sudden Infant (remix) to Mary Walker Groves. Sounds by: Kim Gordon, William Hooker, Takehisa Kosugi, Alan Licht, David Linton, Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Lee Ranaldo, Sudden Infant, William Winant. The voices of: Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, George Cowdery, Thom Degesu, Kim Gordon, Courtney Love, Thurston Moore, Cody Ranaldo, Lee Ranaldo, Leah Singer.

You Are Everywhere and Nowhere, All at Once: The sounds of forgotten conversations, voices of loved ones, talks delivered via wire, crosscut with various tone poems (music(s)), with the hope of formulating new dream theories. You are listening to a conversation that took place in Heaven, some time ago.

This piece grows out of recent works I have been creating dealing with phrases constructed from various recycled bits of voice and sound, the silences between them, and the cross-pollinations which occur as they are combined in different ways. The sound components have been gathered from across a large number of works I’ve done thru the years. I decided to use these bits and selections as the raw material from which to create a sort of sonic journal or notebook. In the last few years I’ve done a few sound installations based around a set of fragments of voices which I have collected, and most of these are drawn upon here. The voices are those of friends, family, loved ones and other artists, and although chosen for personal reasons my hope is that the various voices will overlay to create a new narrative of their own. This piece was originally created for a Belgian radio broadcast in 2000.

This LP is a joint release between Chocolate Monk and Hell's Half Halo.

RELEASED SUMMER 2002