KOOL THINGS The Sonic Youth Listening Club. FINAL THOUGHTS start at post 2431

I have listened to A Thousand Leaves 5 times in total, all between 2012-2014. Never clicked, can’t “remember” a single song from it. Hoping to enjoy it this week.

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this doesn’t sound like the sort of thing i have the patience for

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Thousand leaves is fulll of stuff like that

Frustrated Parks And Recreation GIF

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If i remember correctly this album has the most ‘its complicated’ relationship stance wit me of all their albums because there is so much good about it but also ya know

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it only takes one tree to make a thousand matches/it only takes one match to burn A Thousand Leaves

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Never listened, will be good

There was quite a lot of “Kim’s songs save this record” chat around Experimental Jet Set, I would like to propose a “Kim’s songs ruin this” narrative around 1k Leaves.

I feel bad cos she’s definitely the more interesting of the two primary songwriters, but when she’s off the boil she’s pretty unlistenable.

Evidence for the prosecution: track 1.

Sunday and Hoarfrost are the highlights, the former perhaps hinting at the more easy going (dad?) rock that would be the staple of TM’s later solo stuff.

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One of the things that actually struck me this time round was how much I was enjoying Kim’s songs. I think not having listened to the album in a while, I kind of falsely remembered it as being “there’s the strange psychedelia that follows on from ‘Washing Machine’ and then there are the noisy tracks where Kim is just doing a weird voice” and I felt kind of bad because, listening to it all again, I was struck by remembering how some of my favourite moments are in those ‘That Voice’ songs.

[Examples from the top of my head: the hypnotic outro to ‘Female Mechanic Now On Duty’, “milles feuille” in ‘French Tickler’ which tbf is a banger, the general vague horror at the centre of ‘The Ineffable Me’]

Like what Scagden sez, the highlights for me are ‘Sunday’ and ‘Hoarfrost’ (and ‘Karen Koltrane’! I really fucking love that track) - but I think Kim’s songs deserve praise for how dynamically, and scarily at times, they tonally shift and weave and all that. I even found myself liking ‘Contre Le Sexisme’ more this time round as a very peculiar call-back to Bad Moon Rising.

I’d say this album is def a grower though - coming to it first time, I’d probably be a bit baffled at this point

I think ‘Wild Flower Soul’ is the big hint towards Thurston’s solo stuff in terms of how he suddenly seems very earnest in evoking kind of wide-eyed hippie counterculturalism.

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Think my first exposure to Sonic Youth was when they used to play the Sunday video on Sunday afternoons on RTE (good old Dave Fanning). Years before I got into them properly so didn’t really know what to make of this moody sullen band with the kid from Home Alone gurning weirdly into the camera.

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So can we all agree Sexisme is the worst song Sonic Youth recorded?

And its not even the style. I listen to bands that do that kind of drawl spoken word narrative style its just really fucking bad

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Nah. It’s better than Kool Thing.

Ridiculous. Kool Thing is a banger

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S01E02-ICPpUFMJ-subtitled

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I have never head A Thousand Leaves. First listen right now. Here goes. Thoughts…

Contre Le Sexisme. Okay, not sure what is going on here, a Sonic Youth song title if ever there was one. Not good. Not bad, they’re just messing around I guess.

Sunday. Right. Immediately pretty great. Warm. Evocative of Nirvana Unplugged maybe? Nice guitars. Ahh shit, Thurston’s actually singing again. Good this. Very, very good. Gradually becoming more erratic but damn when that melody comes back. Nicely veering out of control yet they keep it in line. Super Velvet Underground feels.

Female Mechanic Now On Duty. If Spacemen 3 did Heavy Metal. I like the guitar sounds and slow yet heavy feel. Kim Gordon’s (vocal) delivery is sitting oddly though for me. Sets up like it might go electronic in its middle section, would be amazing to hear that but it steps into a Sunday (previous song) sounds and I never saw that coming… and now it settles into a lovely sound. Apocalyptic haunting that Sonic Youth do so well. Got to turn this shit up. Properly all over the place. Properly fabulous.

Wildflower Soul. Liking the recurring leaves lyrical themes. Sounds like it’s just hanging together and it also feels robust. The production is really nice, ah shit, them guitars warbling now. Yeah, this is really nice. They are giving off a mature vibe here, confident in their sparsity, looping into and out of sync. Spacemen 3, Steve Hillage, Sonic Youth, not sure where they are going with this. Dinosaur Senior. Lovely.

Hoarfrost. If the preceding tracks have pulled you into a dream - this keeps you there. Hush. Ascending Symphony. Lullaby Lee. Tick. Tick. Tick.

French Tickler. I don’t want to type this, but is Kim the weakest link on this album? Okay, it has snapped out of it and lifted a little - but does feel like it jars the mood set so far in the album. Recover this you fuckers. I have faith. For the record I usually consider Kim the strongest link.

Hits of Sunshine (for Allen Ginsburg). Despite feeling affected by the last track initially this crawls its way back. S.L.O.W. Damn, they sound confident at this 16 RPM speed. Sparse yet the power it creeps with. Inch by inch. Millimetre by millimetre. Snaking oh so slow. Every sound a delight. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sonic Youth sound like this. Slowly venturing around an opium den. Every corner creeped through and glanced at a slowed down delight. Not sure I ever want to escape this sound.

Karen Koltrane. Here we go, another non-more Sonic Youth of a song title. Ranaldo thematically continuing. Burnt Folk. The bars like Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain stripped totally fucking bare. Electric invasive shards. Machine like repetition. Pulsing. Pulsing. Pulsing… hints of daylight - and again ascension… and it veers… a warped record… somehow hitting very beat right. Bizarre. Beautiful.

The Ineffable Me. Come on now. Don’t wreck this again. This sounds like Sonic Youth alright, but I want that new shit back. I try to recover myself, but in this moment I am lost. This is working but it may be pulling the album out of shape.

Snare Girl. Meanwhile. Back in the opium den. Post Punk Velvet Underground with Spacemen 3 clothes on. A perfect prescription. Waves of drones. Almost nothing there. The cusp of sleep. Comforting, but you can never be sure this band will not wake you with the most startling of frights. This is too drifty to snap though? - and I never thought this mood would suit Sonic Youth so well but that’s exactly what it does. The Emperor’s New Clothes fit so well, who’d have thunk it?

Heather Angel. I need a wide open space, ah, no. Oooh nice. go on Kim redeem yourself. Settles really nicely… yet it wouldn’t be Sonic Youth without a sharp left-turn, which is exactly what it does. For such an expansive mellow, dark, album, this isn’t about the light coming in anymore. Fractured Demo breaks, Lo-Fi Punk Rock screeching, yet fuck, this works now. All is forgiven, go on, Rock it out.

I never thought Sonic Youth could sound like this. Mature. Childish. Playful. Devious. Dark. Hypnotic. The production is perfect for most of the songs. As the millennium nears an end they stand alone. They wear their damage with pride, for every scar tells a story.

It’s probably a 9/10.

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Feels very much like the closest they come to that “post-2000 very unsettled and strange sounding indie rock record” thing (i.e. think Kid A by Radiohead, or Moon and Antarctica by Modest Mouse, or And Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out by Yo La Tengo).

When I listen to the album, it conjures up lonely ruins in Italy or somewhere. No idea why

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Pretty sure this is the last time they were really big in the experimental area on the major label stuff. Seem to recall the albums after this are generally good but also quite ‘song-y’.

Murray Street is super melodic but it has a lot of extended jam sessions thrown in to the end of songs

Also NYC Ghosts is yet to happen

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I don’t think I’m using this meme properly

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There’s a bit of ambient electronics at the end of Karen Revisited (which you can hear in another form on ‘Loop Cat’ on Destroyed Room - which fun fact used to be a preferred online moniker of mine [and is still in my PlayStation Network acct name])

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