Contre le rockisme

>> Sonic Youth's 14th album: experimental or jet set?

by CHRIS YURKIW

So Sonic Youth's new album is called A Thousand Leaves. "Mille feuilles," get it?

That might seem like a cute joke to us groovy Montrealers who speak French, but for an American band like Sonic Youth to be dropping oblique references to French pastries and French philosophers (Gilles Deleuze's A Thousand Plateaus?)--not to mention much more overt nods to Euroculture in the French, Dutch and Esperanto packages of their three instrumental EPs which led up to A Thousand Leaves--you gotta wonder what's up.

Well, what's up is no big news: the centre of vitality in pop music has shifted from America to Europe, whether you're talking retro (Krautrock) or progresso (electronica), and Sonic Youth are merely moving with the times. But the greatly influential "noise-rock" band used to push the times: are they still recovering from that early-'90s period when they blazed the indie-rock trail to Geffen Records and then, ironically, were influenced themselves by the grunge bands who cashed in?

"We had been inspired by playing live with Mudhoney and Nirvana," says drummer Steve Shelley, last seen chatting with Exclaim! magazine about Serge Gainsbourg. "And I think that influenced us to write songs that were a little bit tighter in structure. Not that we were trying to write a Kurt Cobain song, but all of a sudden there were a hundred bands that sounded like Nirvana on the radio, and alternative became an industry format instead of representing indie rock. So I think there was an over-saturation of post-Nirvana rock, and we did shy away from those sorts of things at that point."

Then came 1994's Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, true to its title in yet another oblique way. Then Washing Machine, Sonic Youth's best album of the '90s, which married a return to expansive soundscape (the 19-minute "The Diamond Sea") with full-on naïve pop (Kim Deal's helping harmonies on "Little Trouble Girl"). Now, A Thousand Leaves fits in well with the jammy EPs (recorded during the same sessions)--not to mention the Euro, experimental and instrumental vibe of the day. It gives way to guitarist Thurston Moore's predilection for abandon in pieces like the 11-minute "Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)," but also makes more room for bassist Kim Gordon's jolie-laide singing on songs like "Contre le sexisme" and "Female Mechanic Now on Duty."

"It's funny," says Shelley, "because people have very different opinions about every album we put out. Last week I was doing interviews in London, and some people said, 'Oh, this one is much more melodic.' Often in the same week I'll talk to people who have opposite opinions, and I have to agree with both of them."

Sonic Youth and Godspeed You Black Emperor! play Metropolis Sunday, May 10. Sold out