Sonic Youth, Sonic Nurse
There are cool parents, and there are the parents of Coco Gordon Moore. Whilst Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have probably had Coco listening to Husker Du since birth, the pair have also given birth to a whole generation of artists.
If this nineteenth outing for New York’s delinquent geriatrics is a little easier on aged ears than their previous exploits, the subject matter is no less retiring. There is the compulsory jibe at a warmongering president in ‘Peace Attack’ and the fourth track was originally entitled ‘Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream’, presumably prior to the intervention of Geffen’s anxious lawyers. The Youth retain their signature bizarre tunings and jangley open chords but sink back into a smoother, more debonair groove, betraying the influence of their newest member, Jim O’Rourke, on the sound. Sonic Youth have sacrificed some of their namesake vitality and juvenile depravity for more complex song structures and melodies; there are no howling choirs of feedback or (thankfully) Kim Gordon vagina haikus but songs such as the penultimate “I Love You Golden Blue” will convince fans that the dirty tee-shirted maestros are as sharp and witty as ever.
However, whilst Sonic Nurse is a quality record by anyone’s standards, there is the irresistible feeling throughout it that the group has reached a point where, short of a complete change of genre, another “great” record could be beyond it. This LP is littered with little Youth signatures and back-catalogue snippets that make it sound like a sonic montage of memories from their great 23 year musical odyssey.
Where do you go when you reach the boundaries of the field that you sowed? You can only go back.
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