SYR

Series of (mostly) instrumental compositions by Sonic Youth, recorded at their own studio and diffused by Steve Shelley's label Smells Like Records (btw, i ordered from them -- they ship fast, they're cheap - in a good sense, and they're reliable and generally cooool all the way).

The title of all records is "Musical Perspectives" in different languages:

• SYR1 - French: Perspectives Musicales
• SYR2 - Dutch: Muzikale Vergezichten
• SYR3 - Esperanto: Muzikaj Perspektivoj
• SYR4 - English
• SUR5 - Japanese: Miniidukaru Keesubewateipu (pardon my Japanese, please - i accept corrections)

There are rumours about Korean, Armenian, Irish, Arabic and Russian in the making.

The first three are original Sonic Youth compositions. The fourth was released at the end of 1999 and subtitled "Goodbye 20th Century" -- it consisted of the band's renditions of 20th century's avantgarde composers. The fifth was written and recorded not by Sonic Youth proper but by Kim Gordon, Ikue Mori and DJ Olive.

All these are highly recommended to lovers of adventurous, experimental, futuristic avantgarde rock-and-roll. If those are indeed the Musical Perspectives for the twenty-first century, then the modern art is heading in a good direction.

A series of recordings put out by Sonic Youth starting in the late 90's on their own SYR label. They tend to be composed of instrumentals, noise, improvisations and whirring vacuum noises. The packaging of each EP is done in a different language -- song titles, artist credits, engineer/producer, copyright, etc.

SYR 4 - Goodbye 20th Century isn't written up here, because it doesn't fit the theme. It's a two-disc set of covers of modern composers, like John Cage and Ryuichi Sakamoto. (It's also in English)

SYR 1 - 1997

• Anagrama
• Improvisation Ajoutee
• Tremens
• Mieux: De Corrosion

SYR 2 - 1997

• Slaapkamers Met Slagroom
• Stil
• Herinneringen

SYR 3 - 1998

• Invito Al Cielo
• Hungara Vivo
• Radio-Amataroj

SYR 5 - 2000

• Olive's Horn
• International Spy
• Neu Adult
• Paperbag/Orange Laptop
• Stuck on Gum
• Fried Mushroom
• What Do You Want? (Kim)
• Lemonade
• We Are The Princesses
• Take Me Back
• Take It To The Hit

Sonic Youth is joined by Jim O'Rourke on SYR 3, and his influence is visible by the extended composition lengths as well as the post-rock-esque tone of the album. (This one's not really an EP, it's over an hour long!)

SYR 5 isn't even Sonic Youth proper, it's songwriter/singer/guitarist/bassist Kim Gordon with special guests DJ Olive and Ikue Mori. The language is Japanese, on this one, and the titles above are the ones listed below the characters.