When Sonic Youth’s equipment was stolen along with their tour van outside a downtown Los Angeles club last summer, they had to rebuild.
This is a band that is just as tied to the tone of their notes as to the actual notes themselves. And, given their remarkably long and prolific career, they are tied to their instruments to achieve their unique brand of sprawling, high voltage rock. With their equipment gone, it was as if someone cut their anchor. Anyone who has heard SY, even just once, can usually spot their entirely singular sound from a mile away. They make up a genre of one, like, say, Captain Beefheart. The tense, ominous rhythm carries coats of translucent, shimmering, expressionist guitar. Wherever they venture musically, their sound remains unmistakably Sonic Youth.
But what becomes of a group of aging musical experimentalists? Some would predict that time makes one more conservative, more polished, refined and exact. In short — dull. Others would say that true artists continue to spread their wings even if they have peaked in one area. But when you’re talking about experimental art, it means the norms have been thrown out the window, rendering criticism a precarious act. You can’t compare it with a standard because it wasn’t created with a standard in mind. That leaves their former work as the only available device for comparison.
So where is Sonic Youth in all this, you ask. Exactly where they left off with 1998’s “A Thousand Leaves,” pushing their attitudes and altitudes past whatever boundaries they collide with. On “nyc ghosts & flowers” they again strike oil, and they’re standing ready with a Bic lighter to explode the new-found musical epiphanies they stumble upon. Emphasis is placed on lyrics here, as opposed to the embrace of “Leaves’” open-ended jamming. The lyrics are even printed in the jacket, truly a rare thing coming from a band that almost never prints its words.
There is also an unprecedented directness about this record, beginning with its title, “nyc ghosts & flowers,” which, like 1994’s “Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star,” could be a cryptic description of the band itself. First, it has been the voice of New York City’s hipper-than-thou underground since Lou Reed gave the job up in the late 70s. The band took over with its formation in 1981. Also, the members’ combined voices have always had a haunting, ghostly vocal reverb that punctuates meditative lyrics. And their tunes have always been, and continue to be, a bouquet of colorful moods and sounds.
The album’s centerpiece and title track, “nyc ghosts & flowers,” is the only song from guitarist Lee Ranaldo. It shows the band at its creative best, methodically building a sonic storm from the simple scene of a phone ringing in the middle of the night where Ranaldo answers to find “nuthin’ on the line.”
On this record, the band truly embraces its beat-poetry side. Starting with cover art from the late William S. Burroughs called “X-Ray Man,” and continuing through the many spoken pieces, the band again seems more concentrated on its lyrics.
Sure, they have always been more talkers than singers. But here they go another step further. From Thurston Moore’s spoken-word-with-ambient-noise “small flowers crack concrete” about a shakedown, to Kim Gordon’s talking- blues-meets-trumpet-playing on the closer “lightnin,’” it is clear that the band has been spending time thinking about poetry in relationship to its music.
When there is singing, Gordon and Moore sing together. This is a surprisingly rare occurrence in Sonic Youth’s past records. But here it works well to thicken up the texture of the early songs on the record.
Cover art has always been a real treat when it comes to Sonic Youth records, and it would be negligent to disregard it here. Indeed, it is what separates the band’s Geffen Records from the handfuls of mostly instrumental records released on its very own SYR record label.
“A Thousand Leaves” cover art was so good that it competed with the songs themselves. This time the art has little if any continuity, other than it is all very Sonic Youth. The back cover is a mosaic of flowers. Inside are color street photos snapped by a wandering Lee Ranaldo, presumably trying to capture pictures of ghosts in the city. The back of the jacket is an untitled painting by Robert Mooney showing the pope, beaming with celestial light while dancing to a DJ.
Sonic Youth has rebuilt itself. So it appears that you can take the instruments from the musicians, but in the case of Sonic Youth, you can’t take the musicians out of the instruments.