SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 6 Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui (2005).
This CD sees Sonic Youth playing an instrumental background to three silent films from Stan Brakhage. It reminds me of the Jem Cohen DVD in which A Silver Mt Zion play the music for the silent Cohen film.
Now obviously, we don’t see the films on the CD. In fact, as far as I can tell it doesn’t even say which films they are (the credits are in Lithuanian). So, it’s impossible to tell if the pieces are contextually good.
As for the songs themselves, there are three short pieces. The first is about 25 minutes, the second about 14 and the last about 27 (even though the disc itself lists one piece at about 65 minutes). The pieces are leisurely and very abstract. There’s very little in the way of Sonic Youth in evidence: minimal distorted guitars (or much of any guitars). Rather, there are effects, percussion and occasional vocals from Kim. There are no hooks of any kind. But then what would you expect from soundtrack work?
Unlike the other SYR discs which were all about improvisation, this one feels more like a composition: abstract, strange and a little disorienting, but a composition nonetheless. I imagine that the films are dark and mysterious.
This disc falls in line with the style of SYR 4 Goodbye 20th Century. If you’re not really sure about SY, but you like abstract soundscapes, this is a good disc to check out.
[READ: August 30, 2009] The Convalescent
I had read a sample of the book about a month ago and was very intrigued. When the book came in the mail I was pretty excited to read it all.
But how to explain this peculiar book? Rovar Pfliegman is a mute, crippled man who lives in a broken down bus on the side of the road–out of which he sells meat. His meat is the cheapest and freshest in town so even though he sells it out of a bus on the side of the road, he has many clients.
Pfliegman is Hungarian, specifically, he comes from one of the eleven tribes who migrated over the Ural Mountains. (History records only ten tribes, and the word Hungarian stems from the word onogur, which means ten arrows.) This eleventh tribe, the Pliegmans tripped over their own feet, growled at strangers, stole other peoples food and were generally outcasts even amongst outcasts. As an example of the sort of tribe the Pfliegmans are, Rovar’s father after receiving a VCR in 1984 spent four minutes examining the buttons and one minute examining the manual before bashing it in the face. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000).
In the midst of all of the experimentation with the SYR discs. Sonic Youth released this “proper” release.
of 1996, when the book was published, she had barely played any pro tournaments.
SOUNDTRACK: UI-Sidelong (1996).
I mentioned this band in my review of The New Yorker because Sasha Frere-Jones writes the music column for the magazine and he’s also the main guy here.
Mental Floss
Next comes the ubiquitous letters. This also contains the occasional feature of Readers and Their Famous Friends, which shows pictures of readers celebrities (pretty much the only celebrities they ever talk about). This is followed by the letter from the editor. Neely Harris (I have yet to determine if Neely is a boy or a girl and I’m not going to look it up either, somehow it’s more fun trying to imagine) is very funny and always sets a good tone for the magazine. 
SOUNDTRACK: GARBAGE-Garbage (1995).
I was thinking about how IJ reminds me so specifically of a place and time (I instantly think of the apartment I was in when I started reading it). And there are also some discs that I was crazy about at the time too.
It is incredible serendipity that I did the JOI filmography during this week as this week’s readings actually count on knowing a bit about it. And since I had just reevaluated it, I was aware of a thing or two during Hal’s viewing scene.
Week 10 starts off seeming like a lot of nothing is happening. There’s a few post-Event scenarios. Until we get to November 14th, and a whole lot goes on. A whole lot! 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 5: Sonic Youth Featuring Kim Gordon/DJ Olive/Ikue Mori (2000).
The fifth SYR disc is rather different from the others in that the only SY member is Kim. This is a sort of side project for Kim, 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Silver Session for Jason Knuth (1998).
This record came about for two reasons. One was the suicide of longtime Sonic Youth fan (whom the band didn’t know) Jason Knuth. And the second was because when they tried to record vocal tracks for One Thousand Leaves, the band upstairs was so loud, it kept interfering with their recording.
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 4: Goodbye 20th Century (1999). 
This SYR recording consists of Sonic Youth’s interpretations of 20th century composers’ works. Some of the composers are obscure, but a few are more or less household names: John Cage, Yoko Ono, maybe Steve Reich. I knew a few of these composers from Kronos Quartet, but for the most part the pieces are all new to me. Since I don’t know the original pieces I have no idea how faithful they are.
It took me going to Seattle to learn about 
ten. For reasons known only to my head, I was convinced that Sasha was a black woman. Little did I realize that he is not. And that he was in a band that I have a CD of called Ui. He is an excellent resource for all things music, whether I like the artist he’s talking about or not. Some entries are 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 3: Invito Al Ĉielo (1998).
This SYR release adds Jim O’Rourke to the mix (O’Rourke played with with them on A Thousand Leaves too). I’ve always been aware of O’Rourke but I’ve never really listened to any of the bands that he’s been associated with (and there’s a lot). So, I’m not sure what his actual contributions are, but he seems to be pushing the SY members into a much more noisy/abstract direction. (A few samples of Gastr Del Sol shows them to be pretty out there, so perhaps pushing SY in a direction that was not too far from where they’d go on their own. And, I rather liked the Gastr stuff, too).
