Jan 152009
Today’s jam is from Sonic Youth‘s Silver Session (For Jason Knuth), an entire jam supposedly recorded with no musicians actually playing the instruments put to tape. It’s short, pretty, and painless. Check it out.
Legend has it that Sonic Youth was frustrated by the attempt to record some song. To relieve the tension, the band members turned all their amps up to 11 and rested their axes in front of them, for, like, maximum feedback. They recorded the random feedback tones and then edited them down to an album’s worth of concise, fairly tuneful pieces. I like this album better than anything Sonic Youth has done while actually handling their instruments.
Mr. Mod, I’m guessing you like this side of Sonic Youth for two reasons:
a) no vocals
b) the resemblance to Metal Machine Music
Presto: Sonic Youth… as their music was meant to sound!
As an SY fan who hasn’t really delved into their pure-noise side and boutique-label obscurities, I enjoyed this.
The lack of vocals and the lack of their human element altogether were great aids to my enjoyment of this album.
I was friendly with Jason Knuth. He was the music director at the radio station I worked at in San Francisco (KUSF) and an ultimate SY fan. He committed suicide and SY heard about it and donated all the profits to a suicide prevention charity in Jason’s name, although they never met him. Sometimes I think Thurston is in some “nice guy” contest with Yo La Tengo.