Fountain Of Youth
Sonic Youth
Reissues
(Geffen)
The final installment of Geffen’s Sonic Youth re-release campaign lends an expanded, self-titled debut, the cryptic Whitey Album (under the pseudonym Ciccone Youth), and Thurston Moore’s lone solo effort, Psychic Hearts.
Of the three, Hearts is the most conventionally SY, if you can make such a claim. Fractured indie nuggets (“Ono Soul,” title track) meet mangled shards of noise. The lengthy “Elegy For All The Dead Rock Stars” was a taste of what Sonic Youth were up to next (rivaling “Diamond Sea” on Washing Machine), and for the most part Moore does little to alter his surfing New Yorker demagogue-ness.
You can see now how much of the roots for the SYR series of singles were in The Whitey Album. Remove Mike Watt’s solo take on Madonna’s “Burnin’ Up,” Kim Gordon’s karaoke “Addicted To Love,” and the band’s grimy “Into The Groove(y),” and their startling creativity becomes almost unmanageable. Hip-hop, Kraut rock, no wave, and, of course, Madonna are filtered and pilfered at a time when conventional history suggests they should have been touring behind Sister or recording Daydream Nation, two of their best albums.
But if Hearts was released when Sonic Youth were being hailed as godfathers of alternative rock and Whitey when they were at their peak, Sonic Youth reminds us of when they were nobody but friends of noise polluter Glenn Branca. Originally an EP, Geffen expands it here to include seven live tracks from ’81, adding a little heft. It’s important not to spew too much praise for what’s a very shaky release.
— Steve Forstneger
