Sonic Youth "The Destroyed Room: B-sides and Rarities" (Geffen)
By Lucas Salg
Wednesday. Jan 10, 11:44 AM
Loose, melodic jams and all-out experimental weirdness.

Sonic Youth are such a prolific band that it almost seems unbelievable they’ve never issued an official b-sides and rarities set, but here it is, in the 25th year of their career. This collection starts in the Washing Machine-era and continues all the way through songs left off of 2004’s Sonic Nurse. It divides its time pretty equally between loose, melodic jams and all-out experimental weirdness. Fans with only a passing interest may find a couple things to love here, but I think it’s really only going to be rewarding for the diehard fans and those whose sensibilities are attuned more to the out-there SYR series than poppier outings like this year’s Rather Ripped.

Although I consider myself among the aforementioned die-hard SY junkies, I’m usually able to call bullshit when they’re too pretentious for their own good (or our good for that matter). There’s a lot of aimless jamming; opener “Fire Engine Dream” has an interesting central melodic idea, but drags it out for 10 minutes, long after its appeal has died. Then there’s some stuff that’s too short and/or pointless to make an impact: the minute-long acoustic mess-up “Razor Blade,” the effects-board marathon of “Loop Cat.” But actually, despite its experimental bent (and would you expect any different from a Sonic Youth rarities compilation), there’s quite a few gems here.

“Fauxhemians” and “Blink” resonate with a quiet, menacing intensity; the former makes way for a great Kim bass line in the midsection, while the latter hums and throbs like SY’s take on Brian Eno’s ambient material. “Kim’s Chords” has a great melody: it’s a shame the band left it only 90% finished because it’s one of the strongest songs in their recent catalog. “Beautiful Plateau” and “Queen Anne Chair” also have gorgeous melodies and would have possibly fit better on their corresponding-era albums than some of the LP cuts. The real gem here, however, is the 26-minute “full version” of Washing Machine’s legendary closer “The Diamond Sea”: yeah, apparently, the 20-minute LP version was fucking abridged to fit CD length constraints. It sounds ridiculous that such a long song would need extra breathing room, but the epic ending sounds even better here with a little more time to roar, fuzz, and collapse into backwards-masked percussion and echoing guitar fragments. I still think this is probably the best song they ever wrote.

So yeah, it’s definitely not gonna appeal to everyone, but sifting through the wreckage of The Destroyed Room… is worth the effort for fans, and a good way to end one of the strongest years of their career. There’s still, after all this time, no other band that can make noise, feedback, and random sounds as appealing and satisfying as Sonic Youth. Recommended.
www.sonicyouth.com
www.geffen.com

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Lucas Salg

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