Sonic Youth coalesced their avante experimentation into recognizable patterns with the melodic medicine of this dripping dream. Having reestablished their credibility with 'Murray Street', 'Sonic Nurse' finds the band continuing to turn dissonant feedback into beautifully cascading sound collages that are emotionally affecting. Once again the band produced the sessions at Echo Canyon on Murray Street in New York City with Kim Gordon on vocals, guitar, and bass; Thurston Moore on vocals and guitar; Lee Ranaldo on guitar and vocals; and Steve Shelley on drums. Jim O'Rourke plays guitar and bass for the second album in a row.
'Sonic Nurse' is strongly influenced by the writing of William Gibson (whose novel 'Pattern Recognition' gives the opening track its title) and the art of Richard Prince (who did the cover art and gave 'Dude Ranch Nurse' its title). Gordon considers: "We’ve never subscribed to the rock and roll cliche of sex, drugs and rock and roll -- or at least the first two. We do all have input in writing. It’s not like we’re a band that has one or two songwriters. Everyone feels involved, and we share in the publishing equally. That probably makes some big difference...Jim has definitely made it different. He’s a real -- as they say in basketball -- role player. And I think whatever the song needs, he’ll kind of think up parts for. I think that definitely the songs have gotten more structured because of that."
Shelley says: "We changed the name from 'Sonic Youth Nurse' to 'Sonic Nurse' . It’s never been just Nurse, but it’s kind of confusing...When you get the real booklet, it’s a series of paintings by this artist, Richard Prince. He took these pulp novels from the 60s that all had nurse in the title and he made paintings based on these book covers, which are beautiful; his paintings are amazing. I don’t know, there’s like five or six of these paintings in our CD booklet and each one of them is a different title, whether it’s New England Nurse or Surfing Nurse, so we’ve changed one of them to be called Sonic Nurse...I love being an underground band. I wouldn’t have it any other way."
Ranaldo reveals: "I think [an underground band is] what we are to a large degree. It’s an incongruity because we’re on a major label, and yet we have our own indie label as well. But for the larger music-buying population, for people buying Britney and Outkast records, we’re an underground band, because we don’t exist in that world. We’re in this totally other world and we’re really happy there. We love the music we make there and we love the community...I guess the main thing that’s kept us going is that we’ve stayed focused on the music and the community that we exist in, and we’ve gotten what we wanted out of it. We weren’t looking to make a hit single and go for that dream that for most people is fairly unobtainable. We wanted to make really good music and we kind of just went about it and did it and focused on that."
Moore muses: "One thing we accomplished is that we were able to create a true working model for how bands can conduct themselves for more than five years, playing decidedly fringe music. I think in the future we'll probably become more of a pop band. There's no alternative for us. I'll deliver papers if I have to. It's not going to stop me from making records and doing music on whatever level it is ... The thing is, being punk rock is not having to prove you are. And it's obvious to anyone who is authentic in that mind-set. You don't have to call yourself a punk rocker...Sometimes we get letters from kids going, 'You guys aren't noisy; but if you listen to our records, pretty much across the board they aren't noisy. They're just different. Maybe that's the noise those people are hearing — this unknown thing."
'Sonic Nurse' edged its way to number eighty-nine in Germany, sixty-four in the US, fifty-three in Ireland, fifty in Italy, forty-one in France, twenty-three in Belgium, and twenty-one in Norway.
http://www.sonicyouth.com/
Pattern Recognition
New Hampshire
Stones
'Sonic Nurse'
full album:
https://myspace.com/sonicyouth/music/album/sonic-nurse-8754569
All tracks written by Sonic Youth, except as noted.
1. "Pattern Recognition" lyrics: Gordon vocals: Gordon 6:33
2. "Unmade Bed" lyrics: Moore vocals: Moore 3:53
3. "Dripping Dream" lyrics: Moore vocals: Moore 7:46
4. "Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream" vocals: Gordon 4:51
5. "Stones" lyrics: Moore vocals: Moore 7:06
6. "Dude Ranch Nurse" lyrics: Gordon vocals: Gordon 5:44
7. "New Hampshire" lyrics: Moore vocals: Moore 5:12
8. "Paper Cup Exit" lyrics: Ranaldo vocals: Ranaldo, background vocals Moore 5:57
9. "I Love You Golden Blue" lyrics: Gordon vocals: Gordon 7:03
10. "Peace Attack" lyrics: Moore vocals: Moore 6:10
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