Red Mosquito

tragabigzanda wrote:If you guys haven't, you should go back some pages and find Reeder's SY live comp. It's a monster.

I think you might be the only person who actually listened to it, so thank you!

Relistened to Washing Machine, and Murray Street this week, as well as another listen of ATL. The latter is the big winner, I'm loving that album. I really want to revisit NYC Ghost soon to see if it has aged better than I remember.

Washing Machine is a really solid album, but why do people lose their shit for The Diamond Sea? I mean, the first 5 minutes are great, but then there is another 14minutes of just shit. I don't mind the outtros SY does sometimes, but when it carries on for 14 additional minutes, I lose interest. What would be a 5 star song is just killed by it. Does anyone else think that? Or is the Diamond Sea just considered above criticism and too much of a gem in the SY catalog?

re: Sonic Nurse, I haven't re-listened to it, b/c it's probably the SY album I play the most. I love it and it may very well be my favorite album of theirs.

I noticed I'm missing Bad Moon Rising, Confusion is Sex, and The Whitey Album from my catalog. What is the consensus on those?

I'm probably gonna listen to Goo next, then Dirty, Experimental Jet Set, and The Eternal.

Bad Moon holds a special place in my heart. It was my first SY album.

spenno / KD / et al, what are your thoughts on "The Diamond Sea"? I feel like I've never heard a SY fan other than me criticize it. I mean, it just goes on and on and on and on for 14 minutes. There is not change with it either, no other interesting bits of music going on, just the same damn thing for 14 minutes. How can anyone like that? Again, the first 5 minutes, even 7 minutes with some of the outtro is fine, but 14 minutes? It's just too much, and pompous wankery at it's finest.

On a side note, I just bought NYC Ghost & Flowers for $5 at Amazon, so looking forward to giving it a proper re-listen to see if I like it better than I remember. ATL was way better than I remember, so I"m hoping for the same here.

"The Diamond Sea" is my all-time favorite Sonic Youth song, along with "Expressway to Yr Skull" (which in many ways is similar). I love the buildup and long feedback outro, but that's why I can't listen to it very often. It's all about the minute changes in what they are doing, the texture, the melody...but the last half of the song is only interesting if you like that sort of thing to begin with. And that's my sweet spot - I could care less about lyrics most of the time, and I'd rather have long guitar passages than profound lyrics, if given the choice. Give me "The Diamond Sea" over so much of the twee and / or electronica shit that's so popular these days.

Again, this is also why I love early Sonic Youth so much. The lyrics are either pulled straight from sci-fi or they're complete gibberish / straight polemic (or all of the above) most of the time, but goddamn the music is beyond intriguing. I love the atonal qualities, the wildly inventive ways of playing guitar, song structures that are unpredictable even when you've heard the song many times, the way that some things in their music just seem to come from nowhere...it's just so much fun for me to listen to.

And with that said, that should explain why there are times that Bad Moon Rising is my favorite Sonic Youth album. Spenno mentioned that the 90s Geffen release of this is defective and that's all I've ever known; is there an alternate version out there with a different mix or different track splits that is superior?

Guys, The Diamond Sea is a masterpiece. Its art.

"The Diamond Sea" was actually the song that prompted me to finally get off my lazy ass and see what all the fuss was about with Sonic Youth (I was a late bloomer; I didn't really start listening them until 5-6 years ago). But mostly it was because I thought the "song" portion of it was so strong; I'll admit the number of times I've sat through the long ending can probably be counted on one hand. But when I'm in the mood for that sort of thing -- and I occasionally am -- it scratches the itch (same with Neil's "Arc").

Where's Reid?

matt reeder wrote:And with that said, that should explain why there are times that Bad Moon Rising is my favorite Sonic Youth album. Spenno mentioned that the 90s Geffen release of this is defective and that's all I've ever known; is there an alternate version out there with a different mix or different track splits that is superior?

The original Blast First CD issue is fine, I'll PM you a copy.

I think I read the new reissue on the band's own Goofin' label has been fixed but haven't heard it myself to verify.

Birds in Hell wrote:

matt reeder wrote:And with that said, that should explain why there are times that Bad Moon Rising is my favorite Sonic Youth album. Spenno mentioned that the 90s Geffen release of this is defective and that's all I've ever known; is there an alternate version out there with a different mix or different track splits that is superior?

The original Blast First CD issue is fine, I'll PM you a copy.

I think I read the new reissue on the band's own Goofin' label has been fixed but haven't heard it myself to verify.

That would be amazing, thank you!

darth_vedder wrote:spenno / KD / et al, what are your thoughts on "The Diamond Sea"? I feel like I've never heard a SY fan other than me criticize it. I mean, it just goes on and on and on and on for 14 minutes. There is not change with it either, no other interesting bits of music going on, just the same damn thing for 14 minutes. How can anyone like that? Again, the first 5 minutes, even 7 minutes with some of the outtro is fine, but 14 minutes? It's just too much, and pompous wankery at it's finest.

If that's your reaction, I genuinely don't know what to say that's going to make you feel differently about it. I hear and react to it very differently.

I strongly believe you shouldn't have to work to enjoy music - if it's not your thing, it's simply not your thing. That isn't to say there isn't many things I didn't appreciate on first, second or tenth listen that I now love. Time, experience, perspective - all of these things change my relationships towards art. I didn't get it then, but I get it now, etc. But I don't think you can get there through brute force.

This is a rambling 7:25am pre-coffee thought digression, but do you guys feel as though your musical taste or aesthetic is something cultivated, like slowly adding to an increasing pile of knowledge over the years, or is at heart at something more ethereal and innate?

I strongly feel it's the latter, as though what connects with me musically is largely pre-formed and I'm locked in a constant battle to find ways to communicate with that innate aesthetic in a world that feels dense with information.

In that sense, discovering new things I enjoy feels much more like subtraction than addition, a removal of superfluous information to get to the visceral essence of the thing.

tragabigzanda wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:This is a rambling 7:25am pre-coffee thought digression, but do you guys feel as though your musical taste or aesthetic is something cultivated, like slowly adding to an increasing pile of knowledge over the years, or is at heart at something more ethereal and innate?

I strongly feel it's the latter, as though what connects with me musically is largely pre-formed and I'm locked in a constant battle to find ways to communicate with that innate aesthetic in a world that feels dense with information.

In that sense, discovering new things I enjoy feels much more like subtraction than addition, a removal of superfluous information to get to the visceral essence of the thing.

I think it's both. There are works of art that I connect with on an entirely visceral level, and then I'll try to investigate why it had such an impact on me; and then there are those with which I do a certain mental dance -- trying to understand what I'm looking at, what went into the creative process, how does it relate to commerce, etc -- and then form an opinion based on that dance.

That mental dance is something I've also done many times, usually in the context of "well, this is something very highly-regarded, let's see what all the fuss is about", and I can't think of any time when it's been ultimately worthwhile.

tragabigzanda wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:This is a rambling 7:25am pre-coffee thought digression, but do you guys feel as though your musical taste or aesthetic is something cultivated, like slowly adding to an increasing pile of knowledge over the years, or is at heart at something more ethereal and innate?

I strongly feel it's the latter, as though what connects with me musically is largely pre-formed and I'm locked in a constant battle to find ways to communicate with that innate aesthetic in a world that feels dense with information.

In that sense, discovering new things I enjoy feels much more like subtraction than addition, a removal of superfluous information to get to the visceral essence of the thing.

I think it's both. There are works of art that I connect with on an entirely visceral level, and then I'll try to investigate why it had such an impact on me; and then there are those with which I do a certain mental dance -- trying to understand what I'm looking at, what went into the creative process, how does it relate to commerce, etc -- and then form an opinion based on that dance.

That mental dance is something I've also done many times, usually in the context of "well, this is something very highly-regarded, let's see what all the fuss is about", and I can't think of any time when it's been ultimately worthwhile.

One really successful example of this I can remember is a photo exhibit I saw around the post-9/11 invasion of Iraq. This photographer connected with all of these Iraqi immigrants in the US. Most of them had been here for 10+ years, and she asked them what they would do if they had just one day back in Iraq. And then she went and did everything! She had coffee with their family members, she went to their favorite nature spots, etc. Taken at face value, the photos would be totally uninteresting; but reading the stories behind them that were posted next to each photo, I started to cry.

Perhaps we're at cross-purposes here, or at the very least I was thinking more narrowly by focusing only on music as that's what I generally relate to more strongly that other artforms. That said, what you said brings up the point of how annoyed I get by William Basinski's Disintegration Tapes as it's seemingly impossible to find any discussion of them disconnected to the 9/11 context - total obfuscatory bullshit.