SYR 1: Anagrama

Sonic Youth: Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo (guitar); Kim Gordon (bass); Steve Shelley (drums).
The first in a series of three similarly-packaged EPs produced by New York guitar-noise specialist Wharton Tiers, ANAGRAMA defiantly reclaims Sonic Youth's avant-garde credentials after a decade of increasingly pop-oriented releases. The album returns to ideas first hinted at in guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo's days playing with sonic extremist Glenn Branca in New York's Lower East Side in the early 80s. ANAGRAMA consists of four lengthy pieces: "Anagrama," "Improvisation Ajoutee," "Tremens" and the appropriately-titled "Mieux: De Corrosion."
The band's approach here combines prepared, looped, and electronically-treated guitars in ways that recall both minimalist composers such as Philip Glass or Steve Reich and such contemporary soundscape artists as Spectrum and Experimental Audio Research, with a few dashes of Hendrixian heroics tossed in for good measure. Fans of Sonic Youth's poppier work might pass, but listeners with an interest in sound for sound's sake will find much to appreciate.