Sonic Youth - 'The Destroyed Room: B-Sides And Rarities' (Geffen) Released 11/12/06

            

Trust New York's ever-unpredictable art-rock operatives Sonic Youth to do things differently. No regular best of's for these veteran champs of aching hipness, whose reluctance to conform to conventions after 25 years in the noise-mongering biz is nothing short of awe-inspiring. If the punk attitude-boosted barrage of pure pop chops on this year's 'Rather Ripped' found the four-piece at their most approachable, and as such catering for the tune-loving segment of the band's audience unlikely to be found clutching a copy of 'Sonic Death', 'The Destroyed Room' pleases the noise fiends who suspect anything with a recognisable melody and conventional tuning of selling out by flooring the avant-garde pedal, with results that range from mind-bendingly adventurous to downright jarring.

 

Of the latter, 'Fire Engine Dream's simmering 10-minute stew of detuned freeform noodling exhibits the kind of skronk-embracing experimentation that has reportedly inspired dismayed festival crowds to locate the refunds queue in the past, whilst the crooked campfire plink-a-long of 'Experimental Jetset, Trash and No Star' era B-side 'Razor Blade' is the kind of flat blank most bands would want to bury, rather than reviving it on a collection such as this, and 'Campfire's low-impact electro bleeps is stuff the unflattering term 'navel-gazing self-indulgance' was invented for.

 

All of which is wiped from memory in the instant outstanding instrumental 'Sonic Nurse' outtakes 'Kim's Chords' and the aptly titled 'Beautiful Plateau' burst forth from the speakers, with the latter in particular lifting off to dizzying heights of jaw-droppingly intense fretboard mangling that crashes to a final crescendo all too soon. Which can't be said of the alternative version of superlative-exhausting SY evergreen 'Diamond Sea', which at a near-endless 25-minutes plus is prone to putting the fear in the heart of even the stoutest prog hog. Yet every moment of the epic rendition is justified, as the amp-endangering proceedings manage to plunge deeper into a feedback-infested sea of hypnotic boiling-point improv every time the workout threatens to sink into yawn-inducing monotony. Elsewhere, 'Fauxhemians' steps on Tortoise's post-rocking toes with atmospheric aplomb and 'Loop Cat' excels in haunting minimalism, whilst '3 Part Sectional Love Seat' and 'Queen Anne Chair' (from the Noho Furniture Sessions, whatever that is) remind of the outfit's early days by cooking up a compelling cacophony wherein guitar picks are substituted with drills and hammers. Or at least that's what the squealing string abuse sounds like.

 

Not one for entry-level novices, then, but no Sonic Youth aficionado's yuletide can be complete without a copy of 'The Destroyed Room'.