SYR

The fifth release in Sonic Youth's SYR series does not feature Sonic Youth, but rather an avant-garde power trio of SY bassist Kim Gordon, turntablist DJ Olive, and programming electro-goddess Ikue Mori.

Side A:
1. Olive's Horn
2. International Spy
3. Paperbag / Orange Laptop

Side B:
1. Neu Adult
2. Stuck On Gum
3. Fried Mushroom

Side C:
1. What Do You Want? (Kim)
2. Lemonade
3. We Are The Princesses

Side D:
1. Take Me Back
2. Take It To The Hit

The inaugural album sports a red houndstooth French language theme on the sleeve and contains 4 instrumentals. 

Tracklisting:
1. Anagrama
2. Improvisation Ajoutee
3. Tremens
4. Mieux: De Corrosion

First complete Sonic Youth album is one of Thurston Moore's favorites.

Includes live cover of The Stooges''I Wanna Be Your Dog'. Vinyl includes digital download.

Originally slated to be a 7' to follow up their self-titled debut, Sonic Youth's Confusion Is Sex blossomed into the band's first album: a brain-bludgeoning, completely fried endeavor of dissonance and disarray, a perfect soundtrack for running from a chain-wielding gang near the SIN Club.

This was the sound of 1983 New York City, nothing like the jangly roots of college radio rock starting to formulate in Athens, Georgia. It sounded like no one else on Earth, for that matter. The raw, Wharton Tiers 8-track production is dark, the Kim Gordon- scrawled cover figure art of Thurston Moore is dark, Lee Ranaldo's back cover photo-collage and Catherine Ceresole's crumpled-xeroxed images that adorned the inside are dark. It's an album that moves Sonic Youth forward from their first EP almost by devolving backwards into true ugly, lo-fi primitivity.

The bareboned arsenal of junkpile guitars and implementation of alternate tunings was growing, and so were the songs that matched the individual attributes of each instrument: certain ones groan and growl a specific way that the band started to realize itself could become the compositional germ of a song.

Herein is the threshold of a new explosion of the band's creativity, replacing the comparatively cleaner buzz of the Sonic Youth EP with guitars that spew fractured, uglier chunks of sound everywhere, held down by menacing minimalist basslines (actually played by Thurston on half of this LP, and for the only time ever on 'Protect Me You,' Lee) and the brutal-yet-controlled metronomic drumming of Jim Sclavunos, augmented with replacement drummer Bob Bert's notable bashing on 'Making the Nature Scene' and grotty no-fi live rendition of 'I Wanna Be Your Dog.'

Hearing the crashedwindow intro of 'Inhuman' and subway-brake screech of 'The World Looks Red,' you can attest that while Sonic Youth's guitars are not quite yet being utilized in the totally controlled, lyrical fashion seen later on albums like Evol, Daydream Nation et al., they were well aware of the colors and tonalities that were unfolding and the possibilities presented.

Also, they were getting a grasp on adding colors to the chaos with tempered, simmering moments like Gordon's 'Shaking Hell' and Renaldo's chimy, home-taped 'Lee is Free.' 'Making the Nature Scene' and 'The World Looks Red' even toss in glints of hip-hop vocal approach way ahead of its time, albeit through a blender.

While its confrontationalism might have put off some critics, time has rewarded Confusion with a truly distinctive air and atmosphere in the Sonic discography, enough to have Moore declare it his fave along with the band's swan-song The Eternal. Brian Turner, WFMU.

Tracklisting:
1. (She's In A) Bad Mood
2. Protect Me You
3. Freezer Burn / I Wanna Be Your Dog
4. Shaking Hell
5. Inhuman
6. The World Looks Red
7. Confusion Is Next
8. Making The Nature Scene
9. Lee Is Free

Vinyl includes free download, CD and download include bonus track'a cover of Kim Fowley's witchy masterpiece 'Bubblegum'.

The third studio album by Sonic Youth, originally released in May 1986 on SST Records, shows the first signs that the band was ready to transform their no wave past into a greater alternative rock sensibility.

'EVOL - ¦ mark[s] the true departure point of Sonic Youth's musical evolution,' says Pitchfork, who place the album in the #31 slot of their Top 100 Albums of The 1980s. 'In measured increments, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo - ¦ bring form to the formless, tune to the tuneless, and with the help of Steve Shelley's drums - ¦, [impose] melody and composition on their trademark dissonance.'

Stereogum likewise praises the album as one that is 'full of suspense - ¦, the cornerstone [of] the Sonic Youth sound - ¦, ground zero for the combination of chiming guitars and atonal skronk - ¦ [and] muggy delirium - ¦. The virile Tom Violence'sounds less written than coaxed from a cauldron, the sort of song that fogs windows. The offkilter [droning love song] Starpower' - ¦ is sung [by Kim Gordon] in a frosty [Nico-evoking] monotone. In The Kingdom #19,'featuring Mike Watt on bass and - ¦ vocals [by Ranaldo] - ¦, is a harrowing story of a highway wreck over a suitably edgy instrumental backing punctuated by - ¦ live firecrackers into the vocal booth.'

'EVOL slithers into the unconscious,' notes Popstache. 'Once the [detuned melodies and haunting riffs and] final whispers of feedback [of Expressway to Yr. Skull'] depart from the speakers - ¦, the music [leaves] a faded footprint, forever reeling the listener back for another strange trip.' 'The seeds of greatness - ¦' 'Pitchfork

'A near-masterpiece.' 'Trouser Press

'A stunningly fluent mixture of avant-garde instrumentation and subversions of rock'n'roll.' 'All Music Guide

Tracklisting:
1. Tom Violence
2. Shadow of a Doubt
3. Starpower
4. In the Kingdom #19
5. Green Light
6. Death to Our Friends
7. Secret Girl
8. Marilyn Moore
9. Expressway to Yr. Skull
10. Bubblegum (CD-Only Bonus Track)

The band gets back to their roots in avant-garde classical music. 100+ minutes of Modern Compositions on Double CD or Double LP. 

Music composed by John Cage, Yoko Ono, Cornelius Cardew, Steve Reich, Takehisa Kosugi, Nicolas Slonimsky, George Maciunas, James Tenney, Pauline Oliveros and Christian Wolff. 

Tracklisting:
1. Edges
2. Six (3rd take)
3. Six For New Time
4. +-
5. Voice Piece For Soprano
6. Pendulum Music
7. Having Never Written A Note For Percussion
8. Six (4th take)
9. Burdocks
10. Four6
11. Piano Piece #13 (Carpenter's Piece)
12. Piece Enfantine
13. Treatise (page 183)

In Spring 2010 Sonic Youth gathered at their Echo Canyon West studio in Hoboken, New Jersey to watch the rushes of a new film, 'Simon Werner a Disparu,' by French director Fabrice Gobert.

The band spent the following few weeks recording music which was then shaped to fit the various scenes of the film. For this release it was decided to do more than present the abbreviated clips of music used in the film. Instead the band went back to the original tapes and re-organized the various pieces; sometimes montaging multiple tracks together, other times extending cues into new sonic realms.

Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Thème De Jérémie
2. Alice Et Simon
3. Les Anges Au Piano
4. Chez Yves (Alice Et Clara)
5. Jean-Baptiste à La Fenêtre
6. Thème De Laetitia

Side B:
1. Escapades
2. La Cabane Au Zodiac
3. Dans Les Bois / M. Rabier
4. Jean-Baptiste Et Laetitia
6. Au Café