Sonic Youth Gossip - Lee Ranaldo - Electric Trim (2017)

Robert Christgau on Electric Trim:

Quote:

In the Sonic Youth days, Ranaldo's solo forays were even further out than Kim's or Thurston's, but that was then. Now he's that lost band's only committed bandleader. Sometimes dubbed the Dust, it's a good one, assured and realistic and dissonant: Alan Licht guitar, Tim Luntzel bass, Steve Shelley drums. Insofar as it doesn't energize the base, that's probably because its emotional center is equanimity, an emotional state less sexy than the similar calm—it's too cerebral, too achieved. Impressed myself, I attribute it to some combination of limited vocal compass and getting the divorce out of the way when he was young—his first Dust album bears the credit "Lyric consultant, muse, etc.: Leah Singer," his wife-collaborator since 1991. The selling point of album three is that Jonathan Lethem cowrote five of the nine lyrics, including those that turn on "But it's always the same thing—you had a view of your own / Everyday feelings—like seeds that get sown," "Are you scared of a woman's love? (No-no-no I'm not) / Are you scared of a man's love? (No-no-no I'm not)," and "You've got everything, that diamond ring / Some fine time left to die / So listen closely to your own sweet talk of nuthin'." But they're no better than Ranaldo's solely-writtens, the most striking "Let's Start Again," which has a happy ending—even a happy middle. A MINUS

Rock 'N' Roll Consciousness, meanwhile, only got seven words:

Quote:

Tectonically propulsive riffing signifying besotted erotic enchantment ("Exalted," "Smoke of Dreams") **

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/articl...-fraught-times