What are Sonic Youth all about? They’ve stuck
doggedly to their path since their 1983 debut, but what
path is that exactly? To be fair, when they tried to
radically focus their template by playing noise/improv
(with little intrusion from songform) to audiences in
the UK a few years back, they received an actively negative
response. In their sleeve photo the group still look
like white dude kids, but they're strangely older as
if the camera that took the picture had temporally malfunctioned.
Whatever their age or the extent of their grey hair,
although you can’t see their shoes in the photograph,
it seems certain that they must be wearing Converse
trainers. The paintings that adorn the new album cover
depict busty blonde/brunette nurses wearing tight-fitting
uniforms in various poses. They stand isolated against
distressed backgrounds, their mouths covered by surgical
masks and they wear looks that are deliberately ambiguous
in a suggestive/homicidal sort of way. This may just
be prime Sonic Youth imagery – both cornily traditional
and with the potential to be go off beam. All these
oddly unbalanced elements find further analogue in the
inappropriate paraphernalia of major label promotional
tactics stuck to the CD's jewel case. For example, one
sticker declares the CD to be a Universal Special Edition
(I've no idea in what way) and another informs lucky
owners that ‘the new album includes exclusive
bonus track and secret website link’... Follow
the links and you get to watch the video to Peace
Attack and an examination of the process behind
the writing of Paper Cup Exit. Neither of which
are exactly earth shattering.
The album itself kicks off with Pattern Recognition
which sounds at times like it might have been recorded
by an early 80s new wave band. Kim Gordon does the honours
on vocals and delivers a characteristically self-conscious
and fairly crazed performance. Halfway in there’s
an instrumental passage which might have wandered in
from The Cure circa A Forest, all careful paranoia.
A couple of minutes later and there’s a nice bit
of crowd-diving guitar which builds to a very enjoyably
noisy conclusion.
Sonic Nurse doesn’t appear to be a radical
departure from its predecessors. A recognisable attitude
is evinced which wouldn’t be out of place if it
were inserted into a James Dean movie. To paraphrase:
things have gone bad, things have gotten desperate –
there’s a thrill to the way events are unfolding
around me, and I’m going to ride that thrill for
all its worth. Rhythm and solo guitar motifs heighten
this excitement at the same time as they temper the
rush, a case of alternately holding back and pushing
forwards. Sonic Nurse is brimful of fine riffs
and melodies, no worries in that regard and the sharing
of vocal duties varies things attractively.
If there’s any frustration though, it’s
that their guitar-based music has often seemed a rather
unadventurous way of going about things when viewed
against all the other electronic music that has blossomed
in the group’s lifetime. They’ve never seemed
all that interested in hybridising their music with
other forms such as hip-hop, dance, electronica, etc.
And Jim O’Rourke’s relatively recent membership
hasn’t radically affected the group’s sound,
at least to these ears. But the wheel inevitably turns
and now Sonic Youth have become the elder statesmen
of several countercultural scenes. It would be surprising
if this album converted any souls left unmoved by previous
outings, but it’s likely to keep fans happy and
with the new wave (sic) of guitar bands Sonic Youth
might just extend their fan base. If that sounds a tad
negative, this album does feel substantial: most tracks
clock in at between 5 and 7 minutes, the whole affair
is simultaneously trashy and weighty and there’s
a cumulative, pleasing and even rather surprising sense
of majesty about the whole enterprise.
Colin Buttimer
3.5/5 |
