The Destroyed Room: B-Sides And Rarities

Performer: Sonic Youth
Artist: Jim O'Rourke
Producer: Sonic Youth (Compilation)
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Sonic Youth: Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, Thurston Moore. Additional personnel: Jim O'Rourke. Although it's almost impossible to avoid the whiff of contractual obligation surrounding the release of Sonic Youth's 2006 rarities comp, DESTROYED ROOM (the band's long-running stint with Geffen was drawing to a close at the time of the record's release), the various live tracks, outtakes, b-sides, and compilation tracks (culled mostly from the band's early-2000s catalog and chosen by the band members themselves) should still hold plenty of interest for SY fans. The standout cuts include a track from an Alice Cooper tribute ("Is It My Body"); a trio of improvised tracks from the Noho Furniture Sessions that perfectly capture the band's stake in the 21st-century musical avant-garde; a lovely Japanese-only instrumental from SONIC NURSE entitled "Kim's Chords"; and an alternate version of one of Sonic Youth's finest songs, "The Diamond Sea." DESTROYED ROOM isn't up there with the band's classics--albums, experimental ephemera, or otherwise--but this 12-track collection reinforces Sonic Youth's status as one of the most prolific and restlessly creative bands in rock.

Rolling Stone (p.112) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[The collection] draws largely from the twenty-first century....More ruminative than raw." Spin (p.86) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's nice to hear such a brainy bunch not overthinking things." Q (p.111) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "'Queen Anne Chair' is tight, powerful and focused....Over 27 sprawling minutes of light-and-shade guitar noise..." Uncut (p.85) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[A] nicely ambient version of their usual hellacious harmonics, but also a reminder how the band have attained creative control on a major label." CMJ (p.39) - "It's a worthwhile expenditure to have these recent obscurities in one spot." Kerrang (Magazine) (p.48) - "[T]his is a consistently spellbinding adventure in sound..."

Drawing equally from punk rock and new-music pioneers such as John Cage and Glenn Branca (whom guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo both played with), Sonic Youth employed a palette of white noise that deconstructed punk-rock orthodoxy into radical new configurations. Seemingly the opposite of what major labels would want in a band, Sonic Youth inked a deal with Geffen records in the late 1980s and caught the ear of a certain mainstream listenership. With the release of their 16th proper studio album, RATHER RIPPED, in 2006, Sonic Youth secured their position as icons of underground and alternative culture.

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