Body/Head surprisingly good!
 

So, it seems that Kim Gordon's new project isn't just a lame noise improv. Actually, I like it!
Lee Ranaldo's band sounds good as well, so the only ex-SY member who haven't come up with anything good yet is Thurston Moore. (Chelsea Light Moving's record sounds pretty dumb and unfinished. It has horrible sound and mix is bad even for demo record.).
What do you think? .

At least among the few people left posting here Body/Head seems to be the most well liked of the post-SY ventures. It's my favourite for sure, CLM and LR & The D are not my cup of tea really.

i dont get the urge to click and check out the other bands, but body/head, yes, yes and yes.

It seems that Gordon and Nace cherish the aspects of sonic youth that used to blow me away, compared to Moore and Ranaldo. Body/head takes me back to the BMR/Evol feel. Good stuff.

Cool album, sounds a lot more developed that the EP. Particularity digging Can't Help You and the two noisy freak outs at the end of the album. Reminds of the noisey soundscapes of the dead c in places.

glad to hear, I'm going to have to check it out for sure now, because I also based on the EP didn't expect it to be to my liking. I always find the side-projects to more or less come across as half-baked noodlings on material that wasn't strong enough to make in on Sonic Youth albums. I prefer side-projects like Team Sleep, A Perfect Circle, or Atoms for Peace which are actually as good and in some ways better then the original bands. Body/Head isn't better than Sonic Youth, but I'm interested to know its not totally worse ;)

I wouldn't exaggerate, the album is repetitive. Some noise parts are nice, it's just so-so, nothing too special, imho.

I like none of these new projects.
CLM has a pretty cool thurstonish vibe but feels like it was done too quickly; it kind of relates to early solo Moore (Psychic hearts) but without the eeriness and weirdness, it's too straightforward for me....
the LR band sounds too generic to me in terms of song writing, i find it nicely produced but boring.
Body/head kinda makes me think about Thurston's record with Nels Cline which i really love, but is just so much less interesting.

meh!

I agree with you about CLM. I don't get why people dig it. Not my cup of tea, I guess. You hit the nail on the head with the comparison to Psychic. I think his solo songwriting skills peaked at that point.

Hopefully the lyrics in Lee's new album are better

yeah well i did dug TOTA; thought it was a nice companion, but Psychic Hearts is WAY up there with Washing Machine IMO. Compared to that level of quality songwriting, CLM sounds indeed rushed although it has a punk vibe that i can relate to, just not enough weirdness to the chords for me...

innit!

I had Lee's album on in the car recently and it was fairly boring. Some really nice moments but some really cringey lyrics.

which is weird because he's always been my favourite sonic lyricist

body/head is by some distance the best thing to be spewed forth from an SY member's maw since the o'rourke era (ie 2005, ending with andre sider af sonic youth). it's incredible to listen to it in a more explicitly isolated fashion, hearing one construct repetitive melodic and rhythmic structures upon which the other makes an unholy fucking racket of unparalleled proportions. this has really just accentuated my unerring love for kim's guitar style, with her closest companion in this perhaps being michael morley: it's beautifully fractured, as if it's in a state of absolute stasis.

plus she looks like a goddess and bill's a babe too so it's all perfect from my perspective.

I can only think of you in the abstract
 

I totally dig http://youtu.be/4zMBbDMuO4s (Body/Head - Abstract)

i'm going to feel this live ! 22/10 lisbon

Ill feel it in one week :)

Even Thurston likes the Body/Head album, as he says in this interview:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09...n_3936819.html
"The Body/Head record I like. I put out the very first Body/Head release on my label Ecstatic Peace! as a cassette. I’m very close to Bill Nace; I had a long-running duo with him called Northampton Wools through the years. It’s all very familial."

wtf! i'm in Lisbon this weekend!

but i'm on a stag do with some non sonic friends so I doubt i'll persuade them (or sneak off) to go

they are amazing live. have a great time

I thought they were boring live.
Haven't heard the new album yet, and not really tempted to listen to it at all

this isn't about sonic friends but body/head friends, and most of the night in lisbon born (or die...depends the number of beers ) around this place or area. take yr friends. you must persuade them. be experimental. have fun.

how did you enjoy it?
I got my dates confused and we came home on the 22nd so I couldn't have gone

by the way Lisbon is truly a beautiful city. i'm very jealous (if you live there)

I think Body/Head doesn't have nearly as many expectations as people have for Thurston or Lee projects, so when it is delightful people are even happier about this, where as if Thurston or Lee put out something even just so-so, it is more so a let down considering the expectations or the potential..

I am quite nervous about Lee's new one

hope it isn't shit

I've always been fine with the aspect of SY being artists and regular people who made fantastic music but I have a problem with LR and TM's officially promoted output because it sounds so regular and uninspiring, the sort I expect aging rock stars to produce. Of course they have their many side projects which are noisier, wilder, experimental etc, but I don't like most of them and I think the prolific discographies they produce are neatly detached from the impression of themselves as artists they want to give to potential new converts on their official releases. It just all sound and seem so commercial and money-oriented. Well done to Kim for doing something more enjoyable (for me) in her post SY-days.

I agree mostly with what Genteel Death just posted. Since about the mid-2000s, the Lee and Thurston solo projects seem like they are putting out records for the sake of putting out records, not necessarily inspired or authentic productions for the sake of art. Sonic Youth always felt like the absolute best art these artists could produce, and its understandable, much like a Championship basketball team, its the chemistry of different artists coming together that produces greatness, not individual talent. Individual talent is nothing without a vehicle and outlet to build, create, and evolve. Sonic Youth as a band is fantastic, its component parts on their own only have glimpses of creative greatness.

However, I don't think its just crassly commercial, I think there is some sincerity even if it doesn't translate into great records. While I don't really listen to a lot of the solo projects, I definitely applaud them. I like bands and musicians who are flexible, who make music in all kinds of different projects. I like to listen to bands, whose internal members introduce you to several different bands that they are also in as side-projects. Its like fractal geometry in music. However, with Sonic Youth, the fractals aren't as great as the whole.

I think you can have a very commercial attitude to music and still produce great records, even if you're a rock band. It just seems impossible to me with Sonic Youth and their background as a band, that's all.

If you´re comparing that "let´s make another packet of boring music that doesn´t cause any distress to anybody, just makes them feel comfortable" -music, that most music is today & Ranaldo´s & Thurston´s output, I think R & T material is very far away from that. I don´t believe they have any commercial orientation in their doings, they have just become old & little bit serene.

I don´t quite understand what you mean. Here are both men´s solo discographies from wikipedia:

• From Here to Infinity (1987)
• Scriptures of the Golden Eternity (1993) (Recorded 1988-1989)
• Dirty Windows (1998) (Recorded 1991-95)
• Amarillo Ramp (For Robert Smithson) (2000) (Recorded 1990-95)
• Outside My Window The City Is Never Silent - A Bestiary (2002) (Recorded 1991-95)
• Music For Stage And Screen (2004)
• Ambient Loop For Vancouver (2006)
• Maelstrom From Drift (2008)
• Between the Times and the Tides (Matador Records, 2012)

• Psychic Hearts (1995, Geffen Records)
• Trees Outside the Academy (2007, Ecstatic Peace)
• Demolished Thoughts (2011, Matador Records) (UK chart peak: #119)[16]

As you can see, they really haven´t release record every year. Yes, I know they have lots of other projects, but still I don´t believe they release anything just for the reason to release something.

I think this is nothing but a lie from you. I haven´t ever seen you saying any mainstream record great (Well, ok, in Who-thread you said you´re mod & in the latest Stooges album thread you said three first Stooges-albums are great, I think you have to have a little fight with yourself before you put even these comments). I could believe you will like also some mainstream artists, but you seem to have very stupid reasons not to say anything about them here.

Besides I don´t believe you´ve heard Glacial or Moore/Connors-albums.

I didn't even know that Thurston made a record with Sinead O'Connor. How mainstream, crass and commercial is that?

Its not an increase in volume, its a decline in musical substance.

everyone gets soft as they age. They also stop feeling such intense emotions as they did when young, which then translates into music that is more placid, more languid, and more BORING.

I don't find TM or LR's music languid or placid, I just find it boring now.

anyone see the gig in chicago last night, with the tom carter/gate collaboration in addition to body/head?

You do not find Trees Outside The Academy languid?

I do but languid doesn't have to be boring so I edited my previous post. Boredom is what I feel when I listen to that record.

You´re really a fan of stereotypes. How you then explain that Tom Waits has made his greatest records after getting in some age & still makes great records? If someone says his latest record placid, more lanquid & boring, I think he should go to the eartest. I know you don´t like Nick Cave, but he´s latest album is also one of the greatest albums of the year and he was like a animal in a gig. Also Dr. John´s latest album is really close he´s four first albums.

So you have listened all records from Moore & Ranaldo? Like Genteel, I don´t believe you also haven´t even listened Glacial or Moore/Connors-albums, that I find as great as Body/Head-album. I also like a lot Psychic Hearts, Trees Outside, Demolished, Between the times, CLM & those Thurston improvisation records I have, although I don´t think they´re as great as those three first I mentioned and not as great as SY-albums.

I have always found Tom Waits boring as fuck. he also did not have a huge early career in aggressive punk and rawk music. apples and oranges. Same with Dr. John.

I am talking more about bands and musicians who made their name with aggressive rock n roll and then proceed in their later years to create standard, boring songs.

Neil Young is ancient for a rocker and still rocks mad-ass. He was always a folkie to start with though so his folk records later on are a continuation of what he has always done.

So you need to be more exact what you´re writing. If you have written "every punk rocker..." I think I`ve understood better. But there is also exceptions in this, just listen (I think they´re over fifty when made this):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AXYMHd3yBQ

And by the way, in my opinion Tom Waits has much more punk attitude than many "so called" punk-rockers (for example Green Day & Offspring). I haven´t heard any great new young punk bands over twenty years.

I respect and admire Waits and his career and his whole thing, but I do not enjoy his music.