June 20, 2020
IN VIRUS TIMES, pt4 video

new album NAMES OF NORTH END WOMEN, listen and pre-order here:

July 01, 2020
LIGHT YEARS OUT (Live at NeueHouse, NYC 022120)
Today Rolling Stone posted a live video of our LIGHT YEARS OUT – from our album release party back in February. As it turned out, it remains the only live performance to date in support for our album before everything shut down. We were working towards an experimental duo set-up that would challenge us to be as inventive as possible with our interpretations of the songs from the record. We were just getting started… Directed by Fred Riedel.

June 20, 2020
AT THE FORKS (Short Circuit version)

Lee and Raul created this video for Mute’s Short Circuit (at home) program, which aired on Record Store Day, June 20, 2020. The recording and filming was done remotely with Lee in New York City and Raul in Barcelona. The original version of At The Forks is on the Names of North End Women album.

You can see the entire Mute program here, Lee and Raul are around the 47 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PscK…

 

8th June 2020

LEE JOINS THE CRIBS FOR BE SAFE (LOCKDOWN LIVE)

The Cribs have shared a special lockdown performance that sees them remotely reuniting with past collaborator and former Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo to perform ‘Be Safe’. The Wakefield trio say they feel the title of the song “is quite pertinent at the minute” and is their first performance as a band for nearly two years. The Cribs’ remote reunion with Ranaldo to perform their 2007 track ‘Be Safe’ from ‘Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever’ has now been shared online, and you can see it in full.

 

May 22, 2020
INTRO TO THE MAKING OF AMARILLO RAMP

This is my 5 min video introduction to Nancy Holt’s The Making of Amarillo Ramp, about the construction of Robert Smithson’s final work, Amarillo Ramp, in Amarillo, Texas. It was made for The Holt/Smithson Foundation’s Friday Film Series, May 22, 2020. See the film The Making of Amarillo Ramp at @holtsmithsonfoundation or on youtube.

 

May 13, 2020
ISOLATION 2020

During this time of enforced global confinement – the ‘planetary pause’, as I’ve been calling it, I’ve been sorting thru some old releases, and came across my version of John Lennon’s ‘Isolation’, which was recorded back in 1991 and released on the 1998 album Amarillo Ramp (for Robert Smithson). Our dear, departed friend Epic Soundtracks (Swell Maps, These Immortal Souls, Crime and the City Solution) played drums on the track, and I’ve always loved both the original and the version of the song we made, almost 30 years ago now… I thought it could be timely to re-present this track as relevant to our current moment. For video accompaniment I sent a request to friends far and wide around the globe, asking for brief personal video clips of the confinement from wherever they were – what they saw out on their streets, in their living spaces; whatever subjective view on our current situation they wanted to send me. I cut them all together to the song as a sort of informal, intimate record of this moment.

Stay safe out there, and hope to see you again once this is over, no matter how long it takes. You can listen to the track and the album it comes from on my Bandcamp page: leeranaldo.bandcamp.com

Lee Ranaldo
New York City

 

 

April 25, 2020
This was funny:
What Tha Fucking Fuck?!

Funny doppelgänger Worm Hole/Easter Egg video segment by director Vice Cooler for Earthquaker Devices ‘Show Us Your Junk’ series. My episode filmed 11/13/18, Ed Rodriguez (Deerhoof) episode 04/13/20. For this short section of Ed’s episode, they used mine-talking about the same object-as a score of sorts.

Little did I realize when I pulled out that 20+-year-old performing tool in 2018 that it would figure heavily in the recording of my new album w Raül, Names of North End Women, released in February 2020.

 

April 13, 2020
WXPN VIDEOS

Three new videos live at WXPN studio in Philadelphia are now up on their site and below, here. This was the first time Raül and I had played anything from the new album in front of anyone, and it went pretty well. The following night we played these 3 songs live at our album release party and then everything shut down… We look forward to presenting all of the Names of North End Women material for you when it’s possible, it feels like it will be a long time from now…. Hope everyone is saying safe… For more info check namesofnorthendwomen.com

FROM THE WXPN page:
Indie Rock Hit Parade Live Session: Lee Ranaldo + Raül Refree
April 3rd, 2020
Joining us in the studio for this Indie Rock Hit Parade live session is a pair of expert experimenters whose collaboration defies categorization. Lee Ranaldo first worked with Raül Refree on his 2017 solo album, Electric Trim. The former Sonic Youth guitarist and the adventurous producer/multi-instrumentalist hit it off and the pair released a full-length collaboration, Names of North End Women, earlier this year. While rehearsing for their (now-postponed) European tour, Ranaldo and Refree brought all manner of noisemakers to our studio for a one-of-a-kind session.

For all the sessions I’ve recorded for this show over the last six or seven years, I’ve never witnessed anything quite like Ranaldo and Refree’s performance. Some of the sounds you’ll probably recognize, like the bowed acoustic guitar on opener “Alice, Etc.” While the album (intentionally) features only fleeting glimpses of Ranaldo’s signature instrument, in this session we’re treated to several moments where his and Refree’s unusual approaches are in the spotlight. Chiming bells and singing bowls punctuate “Words Out of the Haze,” which also heavily features a custom-built, percussive string instrument called a railtrack kalimba. Developed by instrument inventor (and frequent Ranaldo collaborator) Yuri Landman, the sparse apparatus creates an otherworldly ringing when struck with mallets. Finally, there’s “Light Years Out.” For this piece, Ranaldo shows off his collection of found-sound cassettes, played forward and backward on a vintage tape machine sourced from the Library of Congress for use with early audiobooks. With evocative spoken-word and harrowing soundscapes, Ranaldo and Refree bring their session to a thrilling conclusion.

Watch Lee Ranaldo + Raül Refree’s full Indie Rock Hit Parade performance via NPR Live Sessions, stream the session audio and check out some photos from the studio, too, HERE.

 

WORDS OUT OF THE HAZE:

LIGHT YEARS OUT – second track from forthcoming album:

NAMES OF NORTH END WOMEN – title track from forthcoming album:

ROCK N ROLL – LOU REED TRIBUTE – LEE RANALDO & THE DUST WITH THURSTON MOORE 2013

On the 5th Anniversary of Lou Reed’s passing I thought it an appropriate time to post this video. Lou had only been gone a few weeks when myself and The Dust (Steve Shelley, Alan Licht and Tim Luntzel) found ourselves playing at The Garage in London. Thurston Moore and James Sedwards opened in an exploratory 2-guitar configuration. Thurston joined us for ‘Rock n Roll’ – a song we’ve both been playing in bands since forever. Lou’s work continues to have an outsized place in my listening experience. His music lives on! We miss you, Lou!

N.B.: I believe this was the first (and only?) time that 3/4 of SY have been onstage together since the band stopped performing in 2011…?

Video shot November 21, 2013 in London and provided by Paul Touche.

ELECTRIC TRIM TRIO – LIVE FEYZIN, FRANCE 031018:

MOROCCAN MOUNTAINS
CIRCULAR
UNCLE SKELETON
THROWN OVER THE WALL (w Alan Licht)
NEW THING

‘Uncle Skeleton’, from Electric Trim. Directed by Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers). Lyrics co-authored by Jonathan Lethem:

‘Moroccan Mountains’, from Electric Trim. Directed by Fred Riedel.
‘Moroccan Mountains’ is the opening track on ‘Electric Trim’, out now on Mute! Moroccan Mountains (7:26) – The song was in part inspired by three trips to Morocco in the 1990s and a particular Moroccan carpet that Lee sat on while writing the tune. Directed by Fred Riedel, the video is an excerpt from the forthcoming documentary on the making of the album, “HELLO HELLO HELLO : LEE RANALDO : ELECTRIC TRIM”. Shot on location in Morocco, France, New York City, Berlin, Hoboken and somewhere in the skies over the Tyrrhenian Sea in 2016.

‘Thrown Over The Wall’, a live solo version of a song from Electric Trim.
A song for the resistance: We use a telescope to measure great distances, a micrometer or microscope to explore minutia. The scale is vast, from infinite to infinitesimal; we humans but a momentary blip on the cosmic timeline. Last of your kind? RESIST/Eyes Ahead/Inclusion not Exclusion/RESIST. Radio Wave studios, Prague; King Kong/Rai Uno, Rome. Lyrics: Jonathan Lethem+LR. Edit: LR

‘New Thing’, from Electric Trim.
“A Song about the internet” – Directed by Naomi Yang – Out now on Mute.

‘Circular (Right as Rain)’, from Electric Trim:
A Circular Visualization by Fred Riedel and Lee Ranaldo. Out now on Mute.

‘Electric Trim’, from Le Blogotheque, A Take Away Show
A film by Derrick Belcham & Henri D’Armancourt
Produced by Henri D’Armancourt for La Blogothèque
Filmed in New York in March 2016. Special thanks to The Carlton Arms Hotel & Elodie Boutry.

LIVE SOLO ACOUSTIC IN VIENNA 020316 FULL CONCERT VIDEO (& PRINT INTERVIEW):HERE

BARCELONA SOUNDS:
Excerpts from improv show at Joe’s Pub, NYC, 6/29/15. Shot by Fred Riedel.
Lee Ranaldo, guitar, Raul Refree, guitar, Chris Corsano, drums
add’l cameras: sophia riedel and rick smigielski

FLEURS HOBO
April 2015, some early work-in-progress from new album sessions…

 

TWO VIDEO MEMENTOS OF GREECE, APRIL 2015:

INDIA ETC 2013-14
Here’s a 25 min video, inspired in large part by my trip with The Dust to India in September 2013, set to an instrumental mix of an early version of The Rising Tide, recorded 012313 with The Dust (Steve Shelley, Alan Licht, Tim Luntzel) [and included on our double CD of Demos & Rehearsals]:

 

BLACKT OUT
“A movie of a song in a dream of a movie.” Directed by Fred Riedel, the basic concept plays off particular images of the Velvet Underground as filmed by Andy Warhol in the late 60s, casually rehearsing at the Factory, performing (as The Exploding Plastic Inevitable) on St Marks Place with projections and dancers, and even Warhol’s famous ‘Screen Tests’. The character of “The Projectionist” is played by legendary NYC avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs (with whom both myself and Fred studied back in the 70s). Among the dancers can be spotted former SY drummer Bob Bert. Longtime SY associate, director David Markey, is among those behind the camera on this piece. Shot at Sonic Youth studio Echo Canyon West as well as at live gigs in New York City and Los Angeles.

 

RANALDO/SINGER: BELO HORIZONTE, BRASIL
Here’s a video from our show in Belo Horizonte, Brasil in 2012. Many thanks to the troupe of 8 local drummers who performed with us. They play in the maracatu style.

 

MICROTONAL PIANOS
Trying to play a normal “C” scale on 2 microtonally-tuned pianos (each tuned to a different scale) at the Trinosophes Gallery in Detroit where The Dust played back in October.