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Rating: This year I'm tidying up the drawers. So many things I'm throwing away. They're useless to keep, they've had their time, they've oxidized, deteriorated, turned to dust. One needs to have the courage to clean up once in a while, eliminate the superfluous, resize the living space, exhume what's truly necessary. A painful phase for me, who tends to build precarious Babylons of memories, scraps, remnants, and leftovers of life with the hope of reusing them in the future. But this year I feel this urgent need to reduce the baggage I'll carry in the years to come to the essentials. I want to travel light. Finally light. And, damn it, behind me, the deluge!
There's an album that has just come out that perfectly reflects this moment of mine: Sonic Nurse by Sonic Youth. It has been accompanying me for weeks in the background during my moments of disposal, both mental and material. It gives me the right energy: dynamic, fluidity, irritation, reaction, consolation, independence.
It's more or less the nineteenth work of Sonic Youth, not counting collateral collaborations and similar oddities. Sonic Youth: I have always admired them, even in their lowest and most boring moments. Even today I wouldn’t know which of their albums I’d take to a desert island. Daydream Nation or Dirty? Or maybe I’d take Goo, or even Evol, and why not Confusion Is Sex… So undecided. I love them as much as I adore Fugazi and Pixies. My Holy Trinity of the Nineties.
There are those who say they can't play, that technically they're dogs on guitars, that they are repetitive in their noise now outdated, overused, moldy. They even say it here on Debaser. But in this particular case, I don’t give a damn about the blah blah blah of expert music-mathematicians and onanists. I love them because they know how to play my “strings”, making me vibrate and suffer on the same wavelength as theirs. Sorry if that’s little.
Sonic Nurse concludes the trilogy on the “way of life” of New York which started with NYC Ghost & Flowers and Murray Street. Like NYC Ghost, this new album was conceived by Thurston as a solo and acoustic work, but in the rehearsal room, the others in the group voraciously took it over, overturning the project, with the result that I now feel it vibrating in the organ placed between my ears. In this new work, there's the return of Kim Gordon to the microphone, as seductive and oblique as ever, appearing on four tracks: the contrasting and slanted "Pattern Recognition", the enveloping, hypnotic "I Love You Golden Blue", the sweet "Dude Ranch Nurse" which among sensual trappings is a very subtle critique of the American government: Dude Ranches are holiday places where rich Americans go to spend weekends dressed as “cowboys”. SY in their Dude Ranch would stuff all of Texas, including the Bush family and their White House buddies, in the company of provocative and cruel nurses equipped with drugged syringes to soothe their “hormonal rushes”…
Still between the lines, critiques against the US government also in "Peace Attack", where they emphasize the deterioration of the term “peace”, which has become the watchword chewed like chewing gum by the world's powerful during the attacks in the Middle East.
In the rest of the album, which I avoid describing not to bore you too much, Thurston Moore is in dazzling form with his irreducible and spontaneous vocality, balancing between adult restlessness and adolescent impertinence. Ranaldo and Shelley, no less, are in a state of transversal grace, tart but mature, and in the refinement phase at the mixer there is the masterful Jim O'Rourke, who is by now officially a member of the band.
This is a family that has existed for twenty-three years, which has managed, despite the relentlessness of time, to remain indissoluble and to produce records without respite, independently, without quarrels and without breaks. It's rare for a band to last so long and remain so crucial for alternative music at the same time. Since 1981, Sonic Youth has been manipulating new & no wave, punk attitude, contemporary art, free-jazz influences, a passion for American roots, and unwavering love for noise, all with great personality and class.
What else can I say? That I'm a masochist, and that while enjoying it I'm here, listening again, and again, and again to the cruel feedback, the sharp melodies, the rhythms slurred in the dark, the heartbreaking stop & go of these delightful torturers. I love them, but I think I’ve already told you that.
People who are aging damn well. And this is an enchanting, special, and brilliant album. An album that, in this moment of my global purge, reassures me.
Youth against time!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Pattern Recognition (06:33)
[Kim]
I'm a cool hunter making you my way
Like a brand name you'll replay
I will know you I won't show you
You're the one (X4)
Heat seeking missile freak
Black magic scared to speak
I will know you I will show you
Will you buy me a shaky heart
Lust brigade has torn me apart
I will know you I will show you
You're the one (X4)
Can you send me yesterdays girl
Cuz everyday I feel more like her
Hey baby baby please don't go
Pattern recognition is coming down slow
Like a cool hunter watch the disarray
Keep yr secret footage heart away
I will know you I won't show you
Close yr eyes and feel the fun
Pattern recognition is on the run
I will know you I won't show you
You're the one (X4)
02 Unmade Bed (03:53)
[Thurston]
Look who's come back home again
Loser looking for his lucky break
This time he says he just needs a friend
Ain't on the run he ain't on the take
Can you unlock this door babe
Will you just undo the chain
Will you take yr time before you
Mix up love, his love and pain
Loneliness lays down his head
Wants to get you high, better take it now
A man like that's like an unmade bed
Stained eyes searching for another way out
Do you really even want this
Maybe you just don't care
All I know it takes just one kiss, babe
For you - he's never there
Hey I know it's kinda hard
And maybe this time it will never end
Hit and run lover back in yr heart
All those answered prayers that you never have sent
Cuz now that yr in his arms babe
You know yr just in his way
Suckered by his fatal charm, oh girl
It's time we get away
04 Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream (04:51)
Your bounce to the ounce makes us want to pounce
You're just being totally perfect
On larry king you said you weren't tired
Time to put to bed the competitive edge
They say you can't say no to drama
Now you don't have to try so hard
The label says: 'don't have to wear less clothes'
Next time you take a bubble bath
Hey hey little baby break down
Button-up baby you come undone
Hey hey little baby get down
Before you fall and hurt someone
You say you need privacy
Broken glass everywhere
Maybe you need an emo boy
No underwear on the director's chair
You are seemingly unconscious
Of what yr body's doing
Like miss Monroe yr head don't know
Exactly what yr body's doing
Hey hey little baby break down
Button-up baby you come undone
Hey hey little baby get down
Before you fall and hurt someone
On TV yr soft and whispery
Delicate like angel food cake
They say if you press too hard on it
It'll squish into a dense ball
It will lose its fluffiness
That's what you get when you use a boxed mix
Can you get some satisfaction
How much are you willing to pay for
Hey hey little baby break down
Button-up baby you come undone
Hey hey little baby get down
Before you fall and hurt someone
What's your gut feelin' about the new deal
How's the label gonna remake you
How was your date with eminem
Did he bake you and then forsake you
Is innocence gonna still overtake you
Like arthur doyle they can't fake you
Ah mariah yr endless
Like the wind, your feelin' defenseless
Hey hey little baby break down
Button-up baby you come undone
Hey hey little baby get down
Before you fall and hurt someone
05 Stones (07:08)
[Thurston]
Lights on the stones on backed up drain
Warped lovers loosed on languid stain
We've come together to gather stars
Shooting up stones our powdered hearts
Dead or alive
There's danger
The dead are all right, with me
We're not gonna run away,
We're not gonna leave you stranger
Turn the light on, yr lonely love
Camera on the haunted stones
Bloodshed a gentle painted score
Notes dance in ink across yr skin
Heiroglyphic lover, nature friend
Dead or alive
There's danger
The dead are all right, with me
We're not gonna run away,
We're not gonna leave you stranger
Turn the light on, yr lonely love
06 Dude Ranch Nurse (05:44)
Keep on running in the dark
Dude ranch dream has fallen apart
Stolen kisses let's pretend my friend
You play sick and I will mend
Let the action begin again my friend
You be patient and I'll attend
Let's rehearse let's do it again
Dude ranch nurse yr brand new friend
Let nurse give you a shot
It's something to do
Took my pulse
Let nurse give you a shot
It's something to do
I could love you
I could have you
Deep sleep coming along
Like a newborn colt you found
I'll wrap it around with gauze
Dizzy reminder
Ouch, you found
Let nurse give you a shot
Don't sleep too long
You be cowboy and I'll allow
Let me ride you till you fall
Let's pretend there's nothing at all
Nobody knows the shape I'm in
Kiss me now it's just a sin
Nobody knows the shape I'm in
07 New Hampshire (05:12)
Trace paper fly onward
Trace paper fly onward
Wake, city's too high
City's too high-up
Kill us your scumbag youths
Kill us your scumbag youths
Youths
Johnny winter
Johnny winter no-show
B.B. King just turns on
The New Hampshire boys
Steve and Joe
They're gonna lead on
They're doin' it for life
On my body got who has
Decimitated gone with that?
With one hypertonic
We'll lead on
Lead on
08 Paper Cup Exit (05:56)
Skimmin' the tops of tall trees
Through the clear light of free speech
A sudden memory disease
Claims the air all around me
I'm gettin' lost in the slipstream
Make me relive the same dream
Of comin' in from the cold
And losin' half of my soul
Memory disease
Across United States
That I had told the truth
Feel so high
Architectural
I look to the skies
To see our bodies
They were rising up
Out of the paper cup
A sea change is due
I don't seem to (?) you
Touchdown on the new Mason-Dixon line
The map is ripped and torn
Jilted frame with all hope gone
I don't mind if you sing a different song
Sing a different song
Just as long as we sing, as we sing
Sing along
It's later than it seems [x3]
Time everyone came clean
It's what you didn't say [x2]
Don't wanna be a slave
It's what you didn't
Skimmin' the tops of tall trees
Through the clear light of free speech
I'm comin' in for a landing
I've got a sole understanding
It all comes down to a word
It's just like nothin' I'd heard
Over the rainbow in time
Will be one hell of a climb
Highlights bright
The lights sweep high clear sky
Sky
Reminiscent
Of money in your eye
Unwind
[something else here?]
I don't mind if you sing a different song
Sing a different song
Just as long as we sing
As we sing, sing along
It's later than it seems [x3]
New ears are listening
It's what you didn't say
It's what you didn't say
Don't wanna be a slave
It's what you didn't say
Nothing to give away
10 Peace Attack (06:40)
3 Feb 03 peace
Peace attack
Early book whistling
Whistling earth
Whistling earth day off
Nature sex
Nature sex yawn winking
Reminder
3 Feb 03 peace
Peace attack
Early book whistling
Whistling earth
Whistling earth day off
Nature sex
Nature sex yawn winking
Reminder
Of the great
Of the great anti-hate
Springtime is wartime
All eyes to the crimeboss
Electric guitar string
Belly flowers
3 Feb 03 peace
Peace attack
Early book whistling
Whistling earth
Whistling earth day off
Nature sex
Nature sex yawn winking
Reminder
Of the great
Of the great anti-hate
Springtime is wartime
All eyes to the crimeboss
Electric guitar string
Belly flowers
3 Feb 03 peace
Peace attack
Early book whistling
Whistling earth
Whistling earth day off
Nature sex
Nature sex yawn winking
Reminder
Of the great
Of the great anti-hate
Springtime is wartime
All eyes to the crimeboss
Electric guitar string
Belly flowers
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By Dan Erre
Thurston Moore shouting: 'I don’t wanna die, guys.'
Their noise, especially live, could also be pure abstractionism.
