Kim’s LA side showed quite a bit in their music, especially up through Dirty. Malibu Gas Station is one of the only songs I can really remember the tune of from The Eternal. Now after reading her book, I get the sense that she never really left California while being “synonymous” with New York.
Oh Thurston for sure. I feel he has a pretty cool solo career, even in the SY years. Also, i saw him live with The Best Day, and he was on fire. Lee has been always hit or miss to me....and i cant wait to Kim´s album being really cool and interesting. And rocking!
I'm interviewing Lee Ranaldo on Friday, ostensibly about the new movie NYC and Beyond, but I think we will speak more broadly about the history of Sonic Youth and film. If anyone has suggestions for questions, hit me with them, because I'm really not very familiar
That's awesome! I wouldn't know what to ask him, but I'm always interested to hear anyone from that band talk about noise, sounds and texture. I've never really cared about their process or technique, but I really like hearing them discuss what kinds of feelings they think their approach conjures. Lee and Kim, especially, strike me as more concept artists than music makers and I think that's a big part of what I like about Sonic Youth. Ask him if he considers himself a musician and see what he says.
Thanks, I think that's an interesting line of thinking.
I attended a screening of the NYC and Beyond film (though Ranaldo referred to it as a work in progress). It's a compilation of live performance clips from all throughout their career, which in a roundabout way end up telling the story of the band. I think the very rare live footage (especially the early stuff) and the thrill of seeing these songs performed live will make it so Sonic Youth fans get a lot out of the film. It is now one million percent clear to me that I am not a Sonic Youth fan.
theplatypus wrote:I'm interviewing Lee Ranaldo on Friday, ostensibly about the new movie NYC and Beyond, but I think we will speak more broadly about the history of Sonic Youth and film. If anyone has suggestions for questions, hit me with them, because I'm really not very familiar
It went well. He was clearly tired after a long day of press but he was friendly and chatty. We talked about his new single, his upcoming album + audiovisual project, the new SY film, his love for the Velvet Underground, a few different times he's played in Argentina, and his thoughts on the new landscape of independent music (what DIY means now vs. what it meant in the early 1980s). We only spoke for about twenty minutes, then he took a picture of me with his iPhone 3 (!!!), then we took a picture together, and then he was escorted off to some dinner with the film festival people.
The Spanish version is going to be published on the December print edition of the Diario de la República de San Luis, and after that I am allowed to publish the English version on my site. I'll link to it when it's up.
Names of North End Women is a collaborative record from Lee Ranaldo + Raül Refree.
"If you live long enough, you see a lot of people drift in and out of your life," says Lee Ranaldo, explaining one of the loose themes linking the adventurous pieces that compose his and collaborator Raül Refree’s electrifying new album: that of the ineffable course of time, and the lives that pass in and out of one’s own.
In a remarkable career that has seen him flourish as a songwriter, a singer, a guitarist, a noisemaker, a poet, a visual artist, a producer, and more, Ranaldo has seen many fellow quixotics – from his bandmates in Sonic Youth to this most recent collaboration with Raül Refree, whose restless career had taken him from hard-core bands in his youth, to the vanguard of a new movement redefining flamenco. One of the most renowned producers in southern Europe, his collaboration with Rosalía on her debut album has shaped both the modern sound of flamenco and her new found stardom.
Following their collaborative work on 2017’s Electric Trim which saw Refree in the guise of producer and the subsequent tours supporting that album, they went back into the studio but the duo quickly realised they weren’t recording a new Lee Ranaldo solo album, but rather their first as Lee Ranaldo and Raul Refree – "the beginning of a new partnership, a new configuration’", Ranaldo says. "We’re a two-headed machine," adds Refree. "We’re both talking about everything. We don’t always agree on everything, but every song, every piece, every sound you hear comes from two people talking about it."
1. Alice, etc 2. Words Out Of The Haze 3. New Brain Trajectory 4. Humps 5. Names of North End Women 6. Light Years Out 7. The Art of Losing 8. At The Forks
Catalogue Number: CDSTUMM445 Release Date: 21st February 2020