Album: SYR1: Anagrama
Year: 1997
. . .
As a way to slake their collective thirst for continuing to record more experimental music with out sullying their “commercial” career, in 1996 Sonic Youth established Sonic Youth Recordings, aka SYR.
In 1997, Sonic Youth released two records on SYR: SYR1: Anagrama and SYR2: Slaapkamers met slagroom. As a fan, I dutifully bought both of them, though I don’t think I realized that one of the running conceits of the label was that each record would be titled and have liner notes in a different non-English language, a conceit that ran through the label’s entire history.
In any event, I soon realized that I preferred Sonic Youth’s more “commercial,” mostly because I enjoy things like lyrics, verses, choruses, bridges and hooks. However, “Anagrama,” the title track of the initial SYR release, got to me. A long, arcing experiment in both repetition and dynamics, it would have also been highly enjoyable on one of their “commercial” albums, and is an absolutely prime version of Sonic Youth in full-out jam mode, and you’re either gonna love it or hate it.
“Anagrama”
“Anagrama” Live in Tokyo, 1998
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I used “Radio Amatoroj” from SYR3: Invito Al Cielo on episode 13 of kittypr0n in 2003, and though I uploaded the episode to YouTube in 2009 their Content ID system hasn’t recognized it yet, which goes to show how far under the radar the SYR series remains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeR7T02y0pI&list=PL787A192EB40E71CE