The sound of confusion...

I'm reading Stevie Chick's predictably-stunning Sonic Youth biography Psychic Confusion. Fascinating stuff, but it's also making me feel oddly nostalgic for my teens, and my first real exposure to 'experimental' music of any description.

In May 1996, i was 13. Sucked in by the excitement of the then-prevalent Britpop era, I'd been reading the NME for about a year, and much of my musical education was informed by that self-same paper (which was still a reasonable term for it at the time - it was still a good four years before its descent into Top Man indie's answer to Hello!). That month, however, I chose to pick up a copy of Vox, largely inspired by the cover feature on my recent discovery, the Manic Street Preachers. The feature itself was fine enough, but as I browsed the record reviews, i stumbled across a tiny acknowledgement of a series of reissues for a band that I'd seen mentioned before. That band was Sonic Youth, and Vox hack Tommy Udo's evident passion for their 80s work piqued my curiosity.

It was all down to two titles really. Their first full album Confusion Is Sex had been repackaged with an EP darkly titled Kill Yr Idols. Given that i was beginning to question the validity of wanting to be a pop star, this synched up perfectly with my barely-formed thoughts, and although i would never have known to express it this way at the time, the sheer rhetorical nihilism of the statement was both dangerous and exciting. Then there was also Daydream Nation - a delightful juxtaposition of words that any teen can relate to, especially one whose head is being turned by the wonderful world of the electric guitar. I wanted these records. Of course, a 13 year old's budget rarely stretches beyond singles, and it was 1997 before I got to hear any of their revered racket. A chance encounter with one of my school's more notorious punk stoners resulted in me nervously asking if he had heard the Youth. Within a few days I had borrowed his copy of their breakthrough post-grunge scree-rock album Dirty, and my journey had begun.



Within a few moments of the opening bars, my mind was blown. By this stage, the most 'out-there' music i'd heard was Pavement's Brighten The Corners, and both Blur and Urusei Yatsura's attempts to sound like that band. I'd heard noise before - but not on this scale; not left wild and chaotic and totally untamed - the album's first track 100% opened with squalling feedback and atonal guitar skronk that rang throughtout the song (except for a few carefully chosen moments of haunting respite), while the melody and riffs were perversely supplied by the rhythm section. Compared to the louder sounds i was used to, like the metallic pop of Nirvana's Nevermind, this was debased and savage, and i instantly wanted more. The rest of the record didn't quite connect with me in the same way, disappointingly, or at least not for a few years. But it was enough for the time being. For Christmas that year i received a copy of Daydream Nation, and instantly fell in love. Again, I didn't get it all immediately - but it was still baffling and huge and viscious and beautiful and terrifying and endless and amazing. To this day i'm still learning more about that record and why i love it.

And so began my interest in noise. This falls by the wayside occasionally - as devastatingly enthralling as it can be, i still like my pop tunes. But when i'm in the mood, music that's experimental and challenging and engaging can be utterly inspirational. And my interest begins with this one band.

Here's some clips of synapse-melting sounds that i probably wouldn't have chanced upon without Sonic Youth:

Sun Ra


Glen Branca