Since they’ve fulfilled their contractual obligations to Universal, Sonic Youth announced that they’d decided to return to their more independent roots without specifying which label (Sub Pop? Domino? Matador?). This morning Matador’s Gerard Cosloy wrote a post confirming that SY “recently reached an agreement with Matador to release the band’s 16th album of new material in all worldwide territories, save for Japan.” Look for it “sometime in 2009.” He then says some nice things about his most recent signees:
Via Matablog:
While Sonic Youth’s status as one of the more innovative and influential bands of the past 30 years needs little explanation, the group’s most recent recordings for Geffen — 2006′s Rather Ripped being their final for the label — rank amongst the current decade’s best.
For Matador, the opportunity to work in partnership with a group who’ve made such an profound impact on our roster/hometown/collective consciousness was one to jump at. Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley will commence recording the new Sonic Youth LP/CD this autumn and we look forward to sharing further details in the very near future.
Please check out sonicyouth.com for details about their many recent and upcoming pursuits, including the travelling museum exhibition Sonic Youth Etc.: Sensational Fix, which focuses on the multidisciplinary activities of the band since 1981, and the recently self-released CD Andre Side Af Sonic Youth.
History buffs will recall that Cosloy used to manage Homestead, which originally put out Bad Moon Rising and the “Death Valley ’69 12″, etc., so the pairing not only makes sense, it seems kinda obvious in retrospect. What’s not as clear is what happens with Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label, which had joined forces with Universal a couple years back.
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I guess being on the Starbucks label made it hard to get an erection, eat food, or continue breathing?
Sweet! Best label ever just got even more so. After signing Mission of Burma and now Sonic Youth, maybe they can land MBV next.
Right now they are neither Sonic nor Youth. Discuss.
!
that’s all i got.
So if it is with Matador everywhere in the world except Japan, who did they sign with for Japan???
this would be pretty exciting if it had happened 10 or 15 years ago…
i never understood why so many people like this band, i know, feel free to bash me for not “getting it”, but that is exactly my sentiments, i don’t get it… they are like listening to a crack addict drop grandma’s china on the ground one piece at a time, all night long, until phlegm builds up in your mouth and you barf, which is a relief, but your breadth kinda stinks for awhile
some people enjoy listening to crack addicts dropping grandma’s china one piece at a time. there’s not much to “get.” I enjoy sonic youth, but I can absolutely see why one wouldn’t.
also, “breadth?”
I agree. While SY is definitely one of my all time favorite bands, I can easily list a lot of reasons why someone might not like their music–some of which bother me, too. But yeah, there’s not really much to get: it’s mostly noisy music peppered with off kilter melodies, odd chords, and NYcentric beat poetry. You either like it or you don’t, I don’t think there’s much intellectualizing to SY’s music.
Man, SY fans must be getting up there in years, someone talks bad about a rabidly loved band and no one starts a bitchfest back and forth.
Well to each their own, but Id have to say that louis must have stopped listening to them 10 years ago because the last set of albums, (everything since NYC Ghosts… the Jim O Rourke albums as well as Rather Ripped, ripped off by Geffen Id suspect) are super listener friendly. Id say in regards to Huph its the opposite, very melodic beautiful sometimes heavy rock music peppered with a bit of noise for their many fans who liked that aspect of their creativity.
Perhaps Sonic Youth fans enjoy the fact that their favorite band’s following is becoming more selective again (not like Spinal Tap but like Sonic Youth) and don’t see the need to argue a moot point brought about by a person who doesn’t like something, can’t understand why others don’t feel exactly the same and feels the need to express his intolerance to the world. It seems very narrow minded to do so, a trait that Sonic Youth fans arguably do not possess.
So there!
I think this is a great fit for both. I feel like the next record may be a little more avant-garde than their last few releases on Geffen, maybe a marriage between their major-label stuff and their more experimental SYR recordings. Considering their relative hot streak they’ve been on there is much to be excited about.
Sonic Youth?
As someone who has enjoyed SY during all facets of their musical journey (though not all of the material) I am always surprised by the fact that they keep me coming back for more with each release. I would have expected that they would have trudged off to their many “side” projects, content to let their killer catalogue speak for itself. But to me they keep raising the bar for guitar based “rock” music, increasing the subtleties in each musical exploration. Listen to “Sympathy for the Strawberry” off of Murray Street and see if you don?t hear Bernard Herman’s score to Taxi Driver referenced.
Louis – Just so you know, I can?t understand how anyone likes that crap The Hold Steady aka Bruce Finn and the E Street Band, so there you go.