SONIC YOUTH

Sonic Nurse

CD, Geffen

After 19 full length studio albums, among them classics such as the epic “Daydream Nation” or the mega-seller “Goo”, after building their own studio and their own record label paralell to their major-label-deal, and most of all, after craving their own established niche in the cultural industry as icons of musical independence as well as frontrunners of artistic exploration, what is left for Sonic Youth to do? Obviously, the band has comfortably settled in their niche – and who wouldn’t have done so – taking the strides as they come and growing organically step by step. That is healthy for the mind and the output as well. Moreover, it proves that Sonic Youth are well aware of what they are doing and the fabulous way they have lucked out (with a lot of hard work and bad times included, mind you).

There are only a few names that come to mind, that have managed a similar fame / position and they are from all over the place. People or bands that have become icons of a certain state of mind, able to stand on their own, either on a large scale, like Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen or David Bowie, or on a minor but no less artistically satisfying scale, such as Yo La Tengo or Nick Cave (after the ebbing of the backlash of “Where the wild roses grow”) or, okay I’ll say it, Metallica, though I’m not gonna argue about the art-factor of the boys.

So, what’s left for bands like that, except taking it easy in the alternativa hall of fame and churning out good record after good record year after year to fully devoted fans (like me), who’ll buy any of their albums anyway on the merit of what they have done in the years long gone? (Some bands, like the Rolling Stones, Uriah Heep or Smokie live on that more than just comfortably for decades, so what?) The big difference is, that some bands / artists use the liberty and freedom such a position offers to keep on searching and defining their ideas and visions on a safe and secure basis.

Sonic Youth have never leaned back satisfied and rested on their laurels. Obviously, or at least that is the way it seems, they are not at all interested in laurels anyway. They have secured their Smells Like Records (SLR) label for their more experimental or less marketable releases and even manage to release great albums via Geffen. Such as the highly appraised “Murray Street” last year. But my guess is, that it will be “Sonic Nurse” that’ll bring them back to the dancefloors of Indie-clubbings all around the western civilization, because all over that album they have strengthened the melodic and songwriting side of their music – which is always there but sometimes less audible amongst the rubble and trash of free form noise – and mixed their trademark (almost) guitar-noise sounds further into the back.

The starter of the album gives it away: “Pattern Recognition” will surely make it to the top players of indie stations all around, which is good, because maybe it’ll make some youngsters start to check out the enormous backcatalogue of Sonic Youth. That song has the hooks and the melodies and the singing voice of Kim Gordon to become an instant major classic like those hitsingles from “Goo”. There are some raunchy and rough rockers, like the idiomatic “Kim Gorden and the Arthur Doyle Handcream”, but most of the album is rather subdued and laid back.

During some parts of some songs I am reminded a lot of one of my other favorite bands: Yo La Tengo, mostly of their music during their langid, songoriented yet still translucent stages, from which they have evaporated into their own epic state of song in the last years, but that is a completely different story anyway. The analogies between Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth do go further than the ones regularely mentioned – working in a niche of artistic freedom and the main people in the band being married – mostly they live in their own world of sound. But that’ll lead too far now.

Most of all, I am surprised how much the critics eat this album up. The progressive potential, especially the genius noise-guitar-parts, is far lower than usual, the songs come straight up and some of them are almost average, like “Stones” or “Paper Cup Exit”, with jangly guitars and nicey-nice melodies and the singing of Thurston Moore very much like the idiomatic indie-rock-singer (which maybe he and J Mascis are the iconoclastic models for anyway, so am I just caught in a maelstrom of indie-rock relooping itself, like it has happened to me so often?). One of my first thoughts at the first sporadic listening to “Sonic Nurse” was that Sonic Youth were now caught up by alternative country, after all. But actually, what’d I expect from a band with an average age of about 42? The days of “Deathvalley ‘69” are over. We have grown old just as they have, I should add.