Confusion is Sex Appreciation Thread
 

I was inspired by some avant-garde video from the 80s [Dara Birnbaum at www.ubu.com] to check CIS out again. It is the scary underbelly of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Bob Bert and Jim Sclavunos. Wicked. Dreamy. Hardcore? Mmm, beauty.

Yeah, it's by far their best album. What a masterpiece. Also the first one I heard by them. My friend, who is NOT a Sonic Youth fan (he pretty much gave up on them after "Evol"... ?!).. huge Merzbow/Throbbing Gristle/Neubauten/Foetus/Pere Ubu/Harry Partch/Residents/Swans fan, though. Into lots of weird and cool shit... Anyway, I went over to his house about 8 years ago to play some keyboards for some drone thing he was doing and he showed me this VHS of Bjork movies with the movies "Alice" and "Faust" taped to it also. Fun day.

We went over to his girlfriend's house, and she lived in this attic which had bird feathers everywhere and it was seriously 100 degrees in that attic. No air conditioning and a shitty little fan. And he asked me "Have you heard 'confusion is sex'?" I said no...

I'd heard Daydream and a few random songs here or there and I thought they were interesting enough but he put this thing in the CD player and he said "You may not like it, but it's my favorite album of all time. I'm not even a big fan of them but this CD.. man.. it's the best album I've ever heard." As the night closed in, it still never got cold. I was covered in sweat. We layed there and listened to the whole album. We didn't do any drugs or anything. The CD was LIKE a drug. I'd never heard anything like it. Mind-melting, mind-expanding, mind-warping.. whatever terms you want to use... yeah.

So, I became addicted to the album, and around that time is when I started posting here! (or there, rather, on the old board) I had to get everything they'd ever done.

This CD is dark, cold, bleak, noisey, relentless, and even at times approaching "tuneless". But it's held together by something... I don't know what. An unbelievable atmosphere, perhaps? The songs all seem to wander aimlessly at first but they all gel into something magical. I don't think SY ever lost this sense, as a lot of their songs since then have all these bizarre elements that come together and create something beautiful, of course. But on this cd in particular, at their most untrained and unrestrained and experimental, it literally sounds unlike anything that had come before or after. Sure, there was a some hints of Branca and the whole no wave movement in thier sound, but clearly they were going for, as you said, something a bit more "hardcore".

And it is indeed a scary record.

My favorite song is probably "Lee is Free".

Confusion is Sex (bundled with Kill Yr Idols EP) is definitely in my top 20 records of all time.

Confusion Is Sex is one of the best albums I have ever heard. It's amazing from start to finish. Definitely an album that should be remembered for years and years and years. A Perfect album!

It's in my Top 5 SY albums. Definitely. Definitely.

masterpiece

I like that CONFUSION sounds like noize, hardcore, dub, and no-wave combined.

My third favourite SY album behind Bad Moon Rising and DDN, which are tied for first.
The slowly ascending guitar in She's in a Bad Mood
The creepy bass line in Protect Me You
The simple bass line and 4/4 beat in Inhuman
The opening clang in Confusion is Next
Thurston's vocals in Kill Yr Idols

The only song I don't like is I Wanna be Your Dog.
Maybe I should listen to it again.

whats not to like about "...Dog" I agree with all else you said though.

it's noisy and apocolypric. that's what i love about it. but, i hardly ever listen to it.

yup one of their best.

Few albums make me want to contribute to the apocalypse.

This one does.

I don't know really, I just find it uninteresting.

I have very confused memories of me first listening to this LP in Brighton, UK. I was in the UK for a year back in huh 1996 I think. Is that already 13 years ago???? Fuck i'm old. Amazing and dark in rainy and windy Brighton Pier. All by myself, thinking about the future and listening to this was a very nihilistic experience. Yeah, my fave is still Brother James, bu i love Protect me you and the radical gtr playing on this is still thrilling to this day.
Tiger says

If you were to drill deep into the earth, into the very depths of hell, and shove a really long microphone down there, the sound you'd hear would sound alot like Confusion Is Sex. What. A. Record.

Check out the lightning bolt cover song. It's a new style of music coming out of weird abandoned art galleries in Boston, called Skronk music which is like insane punk, simplistic sort of gamma metal. Dom and Chris are gonna do a cover at the beginning of the gig tonight, of one of the bands that does that.

cis is and always will be my favourite sy album

So, last night with my sweetheart was sweet and full of hearts. Where's my gost bitch merch? We went to Greenwood, played Time Crisis 4, had expensive food, and now I have prunes. Did you see the genius of the "asformentioned" movie? She bought me pants, I took off my pants, I did a dance, it was cool. Once, on the Nurse Tour, I saw and met them in Glasgow, Scotland. Love is cool. In the game of chess, you can never let your opponent see your pieces. I'm working on soothing ambience. 6 times in 11 years. I took a 3 second Fruity Loop and did so many wonderful things with it, an experiment in minimlistic glitch. Just gaze into my nipples of the future and see that you are wrong. Ever-changing and re-arranging. I wish my grass were emo so it would cut itself. But nice. Just once, at Osheaga this year. So, yeah, time to go to work. His technique is to put scotch tape with pin pricks on it onto the surface.

"I wish my grass were emo so it would cut itself."

Did you make that up? That's hilarious and brilliant.

Yeah.

I like to say things sometimes!!

I heard someone say that years ago haha.

And nice retarded Muse quote. That band are horrible.

Oh yeah and Confusion is Sex... amazing record!