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Geffen Records 2220 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, CA
Mike Montgomery
NYC Ghosts and Flowers marks yet another impressive release for a band with enough musical accomplishments under their 3-decade-spanning-belt to choke a horse. Bad analogies aside, the new disc from Sonic Youth picks up where A Thousand Leaves (their last full length) and their instrumental series, Perspectives Musicales left off, offering the traditionally cryptic SY spoken word atop a backwash fizzled guitars, sputters, pops, and an assortment of various other strange noises. The album opens with "Free City Rhymes", a beautiful, liltingly melodic piece that serves to set the stage for the spaced-out chaos that is to come. Kim Gordon resumes her role as the innocence-lost woman/child in "Nevermind (what was it anyway)" ("soot me over/feel me naked/soot me over/ feel me escape/ boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider/ girls go to mars, become rock stars") before handing the mic over to the brazenly outspoken Thurston in "Small Flowers Crack Concrete". "Cops crashing thru doors infuriated by silver charms/ of suburban smoke/ at war with patches of red dirt glitter/ and blue jean fucking + protest". The abrasively hypnotic "Stream X Sonic Subway" is reminiscent of Thurston's solo album Psychic Hearts, while the Lee Renaldo-hummed title track proves once again that he is without a doubt the often overlooked shining gem of the outfit. (side note: check out the ultra rare Renaldo solo record, Scriptures of the Golden Eternity, a perfect predecessor to this record - spoken word + noise based on an episode of Superman, and after which the band's studio Echo Canyon is named). A quick visit to the official web site revealed a long list of hot summer shows split between Stereo Lab and Pearl Jam, so I'll be very interested to see how the new stuff pans out live, especially since they're adding a "5th Youth" to the group- producer/guitar player Jim O'Rourke, to play bass and help them make their beautiful noise. The album is a must for any Sy fan, and a fairly decent starting point for the few remaining non-enlightened in the world.