Tag Archives: jim o’rourke

2014, albums, miscellaneous, music, personal, thoughts

In Memoriam Sonic Youth XIII: “Sonic Nurse”

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I have Sonic Nurse on vinyl. Not that this is something that is particularly novel, it isn’t by any means. The truth is I have a ton of SY vinyl, early stuff, rare stuff, the SYR recordings etc. The reason that I think of Sonic Nurse as an album that I have on vinyl is because the digital copy that I have I recorded directly from that vinyl to my computer, and I am reminded of that every time that I listen to it.

In 2004 the common practice of “download code inside” that we all take for granted now, was not the case so much back then. And by “not so much the case” I mean that it wasn’t at all the case. So this was maybe one of the first times that I had bought an album brand new, without having heard it first, on vinyl. Anyway, the sound of my digital files is pretty bad. It’s tinny, thin, nasal, too quiet. Basically I didn’t know what I was doing when I ripped it to my computer. I still listen to it this way though. I’ve gotten used to it and I kind of like it this way now.

But the truth is, I didn’t actually buy this album until a few years after it came out. I got Rather Ripped and then went back to Sonic Nurse after I realized that there was an album out there that I didn’t have. I’m glad that I did because there are a lot of great tracks on here. “Pattern Recognition” starting it off, with its lengthy noise freak-out at the end is so great to hear after not getting too much of it in the past couple of albums.

Of course Jim O’Rourke was still in the band at this time, which means there was some more interesting guitar interplay throughout the album. Things really take off with songs like “Stones” and “New Hampshire,” though. Dense layers of melodic interplay that more closely resemble some sort of free-jazz improv session than they do anything else that Sonic Youth has attempted before. Sure, their stuff has always had an element of noise and experimentation to it (that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?) but when 3 different guitarists start attacking the same patch of silence all at once, coming at it from completely different angles, all spreading out and crossing over top of each other, well that sounds different than the usual blasts of noise and feedback that we’ve been getting.

Interludes that feature melodies that closely resemble real-life actual guitar solos like in “Unmade Bed” start to appear, and really add an interesting dynamic to the staid gestures that the band has been adhering to for the past couple of decades.

What’s funny about writing this is that my memories of getting to know this album are continuing to this day. It wasn’t really all that long ago that the album came out, barely 10 years now, and I’m pretty much still continuing on down the same path that I was starting out on when this album came out in 2004. Back then I was in the 2nd year of my undergraduate program, and now I’m in the 3rd year of a doctoral program, with only a little break in between. So in a way I’m still coming to know this album little by little. Sadly I know that I tend to neglect it in favor of Rather Ripped or some of the classic stuff.

I have been thinking though, as I listen to this and the albums that come after it, about Kim and Thurston. Now that it is 2014, and they have been separated or divorced or whatever for a few years now, how far back did what lead to that start? And what lyrics or songs would indicate that a separation was in the works? Does it go all the way back to Murray Street? Does it start here, or on Rather Ripped? There may have to be some pretty detailed lyrical analysis to figure it all out.

Either way, listening to this album I’m just thankful that the band decided to continue on the path that they returned to on Murray Street.

Lots of things were starting to come to an end, not only Kim and Thurston’s marriage, but also the band itself. They would leave DGC after releasing Rather Ripped two years after Sonic Nurse, and only one more non-SYR album in 2009. At this point in their career, and at this point in my being a fan, Sonic Youth was just a given. I thought that it was a pretty safe bet that we would be getting albums from them well into the next decade, that they would never stop, and it would just be something that went on in perpetuity.

I guess I was wrong.

2014, albums, miscellaneous, music, thoughts

In Memoriam Sonic Youth XII: “Murray Street”

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“Murray Street,” to me, feels like a resurrection of sorts for Sonic Youth. This undoubtedly has a lot to do with the fact that after several years away from the band, completely missing out on “A Thousand Leaves” and “NYC Ghosts & Flowers,” I got this album from my brother for my birthday and started listening to them again in earnest. It was like starting to talk to an old friend again after having a huge fight.

And so many of the elements of Sonic Youth’s songwriting that were missing from the (what I thought at the time were) way-too-high concept of the previous two albums, return here on “Murray Street” in full force. It’s a return to structure, or as much song-structure as Sonic Youth could ever return to; there’s more of a focus on filling the space with guitar driven harmony and melody; more of a focus on all of the band’s strengths, basically. One could Listen to “Washing Machine,” skip over the next two albums and go straight to “Murray Street” and not really have missed much in the way of an evolution. The two albums in between have their strengths and their weakness, of course, but aside from that they just sound as though the band had veered off course for a bit. Again, the insertion of the SYR recordings probably have a lot to do with that.

 


We’re picking up right where we left off now. In that time away the band had added Jim O’Rourke to the official lineup, which brought in some more complex compositional forethought to the writing process, and if I’m remembering my Sonic Youth trivia correctly this was something that drove Thurston a little crazy because it slowed the whole writing and recording process down. Anyway, that’s something to consider I guess, but it really has nothing to do with my experience of the album.

I just remember that when I got this album it was during my first year away at college, it had come out only a few months before I started. At the same time that I was re-acquainting myself with Sonic Youth I was discovering an entire world of music that I had never even heard of before. This was around the time that I discovered the music of Charles Ives, John Cage, Stravinsky and so many others that are staples in my regular listening now. Everything was starting to make a little more sense to me now. I was starting to be able to put together where all of these ideas and sounds were coming from. At the time I didn’t realize just how many gaps existed in my knowledge of music in general.

Listening to “Murray Street” again now I can clearly hear the beginnings of ideas that turn up in slightly varied form on “Rather Ripped,” which would come out 4 years later. The one thing that jumps out at me right now is the tuning of “Rain on Tin” sounds to be the same as the tuning used on “Pink Steam.” There are a lot of similarities in those two songs.

The album is definitely more subdued than material found on “Experimental, Jet Set, Trash & No Star,” and there certainly isn’t anything as cacophonous (nor as epic and brilliant) as “The Diamond Sea.” It’s a new phase of Sonic Youth. They seem less focused on creating as much noise as possible, and more interested in carving out interesting and dare I say it catchy melodies.

I still enjoy “Murray Street,” and when I listen to it now all sorts of memories of my first years away at college come flooding back, which was a good time for me. For maybe the first time in a decades I felt as though I was succeeding in something, and feeling comfortable doing it. It’s similar to how I think I was feeling when I first started listening to Sonic Youth. I guess that at this point it was good to welcome them back. And now that we were becoming re-acquainted I was learning to listen to music in an entirely new way. Neither one of us needed non-stop action, aggression and noise to hold our interest any more. And this is the reason that I started writing these entries, is because that connection of growing up with the band holds true all the way through to the end.

Up next I continue through to the final phase of the band with their final 3 proper releases.