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At the onset of the '90s, Sonic Youth flirted with mainstream success and let it walk away, a random eye-contact encounter with a pretty passer-by on a busy street. Now the influential quartet wants us to view it not in terms of our usual arenas of judgment, such as record sales or radio hits, but as a contemporary art project, as vital and moderne as an installment hanging in a Soho gallery. Thus, in the past year, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley recorded and self-released three albums of bewildering non-vocal music constructed of atonal, stuttering guitars and variously syncopated and off-kilter percussion. These long, winding and nearly impenetrable EPs ostensibly served as some sort of introduction to the grand gesture known as A Thousand Leaves (DGC), Sonic Youth's 14th LP. In theory, this record should make sense of its three predecessors, a clarion and song-filled follow-up to the slew of obtuse noise and anti-noise meanderings on the EPs. But A Thousand Leaves is just another Sonic Youth record, and not a very good one. Its 11 tracks are certainly artful, extending on a legacy of long-form composition replete with unconventional guitar tunings and rhythmic constructions that nod at rock and jazz yet commit to neither. It has higher intentions lyrically as well; the words attached to these soundscapes reach for a sort of poetry, as evidenced in Moore's Allen Ginsberg tribute, "Hits of Sunshine," a musically restrained elegy laced with earnestly painted images. Ranaldo also signs up to read at the open mike, waxing philosophical about a wintry drive in "Hoarfrost." For her part, Gordon eschews poetic device and relies on the raspy growls and the sultry coos that have become her trademarks in Sonic Youth and her more acerbic side project, Free Kitten. For all their efforts, the three auteurs and their drummer have created a work no more enriching, consistent or meaningful than their pop-minded albums of the past five years, from the as-close-to-classic-rock-as-we-get 1992 effort Dirty to 1995's tuneful Washing Machine. The most accessible song and the first single from A Thousand Leaves, "Sunday," shines as an example of what Sonic Youth could do best if it weren't so insistent on looking inward rather than outward. The sprightly melody incorporates Moore and Ranaldo's arch guitar interplay, and the overall sound weaves in elements that trace back to the band's 1981 inception as a youthful innovator operating from within the downtown New York no-wave scene and on traditional rock's periphery. But as if to impart the message that this is the only pop song on the record, Moore sings, "Sunday comes and Sunday goes." Sonic Youth shrugs off this clairvoyant moment and reverts to indulgences like "Karen Koltrane," one of the befuddling excursions that dominate an album we're asked to consider as art. To further emphasize the record-as-tableau concept, Sonic Youth's current tour features songs from A Thousand Leaves almost exclusively. Don't strain your voice yelling out requests for "Catholic Block" or "Expressway to Yr Skull" or even the onetime hit "Kool Thing," our heroes say, because that's not what this tour is about. Sonic Youth wishes to exist as a traveling art exhibit rather than a band performing to an audience longing for interpretations of old favorites. It's the antithetical statement of the Kinks' double-live album Give the People What They Want, and it runs counter to what fans expect from a rock concert. The band took a similar stance last summer in playing only the noisy compositions from its EPs (and a preview of "Hits of Sunshine") at Champoeg State Park Amphitheater, in essence asking the crowd to respect the members' wish to focus on new material. It's an especially irksome request given the hit-and-miss nature of Sonic Youth's current song cycle. A Thousand Leaves isn't the best art this band has ever produced, nor is it strong enough to ignore a catalog of past songs that fans appreciate, songs they will apparently not hear. A Budding Comeback:Marigold has rediscovered its stride after spending the past year attempting to deliver on its early promise. The Springfield quartet stole the show Saturday night at Seattle's Sit 'n' Spin, outplaying the local bands Bicycle and the Parc Boys (formerly Sweetwater) with a whimsical set of punctuated guitar pop. Marigold's strong reemergence isn't escaping record industry insiders; several major labels are again sizing it up for a deal. |
