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Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
Published by:
Pif, LLC
PMB 248
4820 Yelm Hwy SE
Suite B
Lacey, WA 98503-4903
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| PAST MUSIC REVIEWS | MORE REVIEWS |
Stick It In Your Ear : Page 1, 2, 3
2. Lee Ranaldo – From Here to Infinity
Of Sonic Youth's two guitar players, Lee Ranaldo has always made more art noise, while Thurston Moore has made more rock noise. Ranaldo's From Here to Infinity was ground-breaking in its day, before widespread use of loop-based sampler tech. It was originally released on white vinyl with 3D tessellating horses embedded in the wax. You dropped the needle on a track, and it played for maybe two minutes before permanently skipping the last two seconds of the song. This was intentional. It would skip forever until you lifted the needle and set it on the next tune, which would play for two minutes and then skip forever – twelve songs of this stuff.
Now that the project is out on CD, it should be slightly less interminable (literally), but no less noisy. Ranaldo is a studied but not subtle minimalist guitarist. He creates not a wall of noise but rather that certain noise, that certain tone, that certain vibration, and then it's gone. Like a collection of haiku poems, maybe (if somehow you were able to hook a collection of haiku poems up to a massively distorted and screeching amplifier). From Here to Infinity is intentionally crafted, but music it ain't.
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Will Sonic Youth ever go away? Hang in there a while longer. Neil Young thought Sonic Youth was so cool that he took the band on a nationwide tour as his opening act. This won Neil brownie points with the art rock crowd, but it didn't go over too well with his staple fans, the classic rock crowd. And as usual, Neil couldn't have cared less. Sonic Youth, ever the noise evangelists, coaxed Young into releasing a double CD of the tour. The main CD, Weld, would be your basic live concert album. The second CD,_Arc_, would be an amalgam of feedback, tuning, especially noisy excerpts from particular songs and basically any other noisy stuff that could be culled from the hours and hours of concert master tapes. And that's about what it is. If Sonic Youth are the Beach Boys of Noise Rock Beach, then Neil Young is the Neil Young of Noise Rock Beach. Even big rock stars go sunbathing occasionally. |
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4. Pat Metheny – Zero Tolerance for Silence
Released in 1994 and now already out of print, Zero Tolerance for Silence documents jazz guitar god Pat Metheny's own brief visit to Noise Music Beach. Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth called this CD the "most radical recording of the decade." Maybe Thurston said that because Pat Metheny's noise feedback is actually superior to everyone else's noise feedback, or maybe Thurston said that to give the false impression that he was even able to tell the difference.
Whatever the case, most of Metheny's whitebread jazz fans were not able to tell the difference, and consequently, the CD is now out of print. But they should have seen this type of thing coming from Metheny, an artist who of his own volition recorded a CD with Ornette Coleman (see noise chart)! Zero Tolerance for Silence is so acclaimed I'm obliged to review it and so obscure that I've never even heard it. If you want to mail me your copy as a goodwill gesture to your cat, feel free.
5. Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music
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If Pat Metheny is the Ornette Coleman of Noise Music Beach, then Lou Reed is the large earth moving equipment of Noise Music Beach. (Are you following all of this?) Metal Machine Music comes complete with its own urban legend: Lou Reed wanted out of his contract with his record company, but they wouldn't release him. Lou owed them one more album, and by golly, they were going to get it from him. In response, Lou defiantly served up this double CD of monotonous noise. "How ya' like me now?" True or not, it hardly matters. If you like dissonant bagpipes methodically laundered in industrial strength dryers, this CD is for you. Even better than the noise of the album is its cover. How would you market a double CD of electronic noise to mid-‘70s rock and roll fans? Yep, that about does it. If only more techno CD's were packaged thusly, the world would be a safer place. The best part about Metal Machine Music, however, is the hilarious "customer review war" it has engendered at Amazon.com. Ranging from the passionately incensed to the ludicrously worshipful, my favorite review is this gleeful dead-pan farce – "A solid, if uneven, effort. This is a good album, but not one of Lou's Best. 'metal machine music, part 1' gets things off to a promising start, but 'metal machine music, part 2' can't sustain the momentum. 'part 3' and 'part 4' are decent songs, but nothing really special." Witness the unfolding drama, as some listeners visit Noise Music Beach willingly, while others listeners are unwittingly dragged by Lou to its bubbling and ebullient shores. Oh, the humanity! |
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