Sonic Youth: Goodbye 20th Century

Hello, goodbye, hello

Sonic Youth has U-turned back to its beginnings. After experimental early releases, the band flirted with conventional song structure in the mid-'80s. This domestication peaked on 1992's Dirty, which sounded like Nirvana on a feminism and irony kick. But recently, Sonic Youth has veered again toward contemplative, avant garde sounds. In 1997, they began the Musical Directions series—explorations of experimental classical and improv. With titles in French and Esperanto, Musical Directions at first seemed farcically pretentious. But Goodbye 20th Century, the series' fourth release, a selection of compositions from the past 50 years, proves that Sonic Youth isn't kidding.

Christian Wolff's "Edges" opens the album. Beginning with feedback and metal percussion, it sprawls into random noise and enveloping dissonances that are almost monastic. Kim Gor-don's sultry, abstracted vocals complete the atmosphere. "Six," a minimal, brittle John Cage work, leads into Christine Oliveros' "Six for New Time," the album's high point. Thurston Moore's narration moves above insistent percussion and burnt-out guitar. But then the disc falls flat, hitting bottom at a mercifully short piece by Yoko Ono.

Disc two is more consistent. James Tenney's "Never Having Written a Note for Percussion" builds from prepared piano to a static-drenched droning climax. "Treatise," by Cornelius Cardrew, is a fitting centennial farewell. Spacey yet brooding, it holds the hope and despair of the past 100 years in three minutes of ray guns and dissonance.

Goodbye 20th Century isn't the retrospective that its title suggests. Instead, it's Sonic Youth's admiring interpretation of some of their own avant garde influences, serving as both a window to the group's sensibilities and another step back to the experimentation of yore. (SYR)

—Nathan Littlefield

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