NYC Ghosts & Flowers

Sonic Youth

# Audio CD (May 16, 2000)
# Original Release Date: May 16, 2000
# Number of Discs: 1
# Format: Explicit Lyrics
# Label: Interscope Records
# ASIN: B00004T3XL
# Also Available in: Audio Cassette | LP Record | Music Download

Track Listings
1. Free City Rhymes 7:32
2. Renegade Princess 5:49
3. Nevermind (What Was It Anyway) 5:37
4. Small Flowers Crack Concrete 5:12
5. Side2Side 3:34
6. StreamXSonik Subway 2:51
7. NYC Ghosts & Flowers 7:52
8. Lightnin' 3:51

Amazon.com
It's either a blessing or a shame that the risks Sonic Youth take don't really matter any more. No longer the groundbreakers, or the train spotters they've played in the past, they are now a band like any other. They play for the sheer joy of sound, the kinetics of experience. There's no other reason left to do it--which must be incredibly liberating, and more than a little sad. NYC Ghosts & Flowers is marked by the same yearning calm that defined its predecessor, A Thousand Leaves. The hooks are conspicuous in their absence, as if to say the battle may be over, and we're better off having lost. The notable exception to this brilliant game of implication is "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway?)," an obvious indictment of the decade-defining "alt-rock" phenomenon SY partially inspired. It's only fitting that this track sounds lost amid an album far too wrapped in its own interior explorations to bother stating the obvious. Sure, you could say that NYC Ghosts & Flowers is the group's best record since Daydream Nation--what's a new Sonic Youth album without such an assessment?--but to do so would deprive them of their greatest achievement. No longer fashionable or influential, Sonic Youth persist in the strength of their own passions. They matter to themselves. To hell with everyone else. --Matt Hanks

posted by kanx1976 at 05:36

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Burroughs lives on through Sonic Youth

Probably their most innovative and eclectic release yet, NYC Ghosts & Flowers is a triumph in stream of conciousness poetry and musical form, as well as tribute to the gods of beat--mainly William S. Burroughs (one of William's old paintings is the cover art), but I guess it could be more Ginsberg, but that influence has been appareant for a while now, espescially on the phenomenal A THousand Leaves.

Gordon's contributions include "Side 2 Side" and "Nevermind (What Was It Anyway?)", both of which reflect simple cut-up one word fragments that seem unrelated to create wonderful atmospheres, she also contributes "Lightnin'" which repeats the words 'lightning strikes me' over and over on top of tweaked horns. I must say this album includes alot of electronic sounds and effects, adding an extra pinch of ascension to every single song. The best songs are Renaldo's definitely Burroughsesque "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" ("narcotic cops sweep through poet dens", blue lights looking for the heart of D.A. Levy and "the brain he left behind") and the title track (by far the best song on this wonderful masterpeice, Renaldo has come far as a poet). Renaldo might also the carnival tinged "StreamXSonicSubway", the lyrics seem up his alley, but sometimes it's hard to tell him from Thurston. Moore does do a few songs however, the Teen age Riot to the new degree "Renegade Princess" and the melodic beginner "Free City Rhymes". Everything on here is done to perfection, zones you into the dark recesses of the imagination just like Naked Lunch or THe Wild Boys or any book by WSB can. Cooooooooooool, man.; 18 February 2008 at 05:39