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Yeah, it's by far their best album. What a masterpiece. Also the first one I heard by them. My friend, who is NOT a Sonic Youth fan (he pretty much gave up on them after "Evol"... ?!).. huge Merzbow/Throbbing Gristle/Neubauten/Foetus/Pere Ubu/Harry Partch/Residents/Swans fan, though. Into lots of weird and cool shit... Anyway, I went over to his house about 8 years ago to play some keyboards for some drone thing he was doing and he showed me this VHS of Bjork movies with the movies "Alice" and "Faust" taped to it also. Fun day.
We went over to his girlfriend's house, and she lived in this attic which had bird feathers everywhere and it was seriously 100 degrees in that attic. No air conditioning and a shitty little fan. And he asked me "Have you heard 'confusion is sex'?" I said no...
I'd heard Daydream and a few random songs here or there and I thought they were interesting enough but he put this thing in the CD player and he said "You may not like it, but it's my favorite album of all time. I'm not even a big fan of them but this CD.. man.. it's the best album I've ever heard." As the night closed in, it still never got cold. I was covered in sweat. We layed there and listened to the whole album. We didn't do any drugs or anything. The CD was LIKE a drug. I'd never heard anything like it. Mind-melting, mind-expanding, mind-warping.. whatever terms you want to use... yeah.
So, I became addicted to the album, and around that time is when I started posting here! (or there, rather, on the old board) I had to get everything they'd ever done.
This CD is dark, cold, bleak, noisey, relentless, and even at times approaching "tuneless". But it's held together by something... I don't know what. An unbelievable atmosphere, perhaps? The songs all seem to wander aimlessly at first but they all gel into something magical. I don't think SY ever lost this sense, as a lot of their songs since then have all these bizarre elements that come together and create something beautiful, of course. But on this cd in particular, at their most untrained and unrestrained and experimental, it literally sounds unlike anything that had come before or after. Sure, there was a some hints of Branca and the whole no wave movement in thier sound, but clearly they were going for, as you said, something a bit more "hardcore".
And it is indeed a scary record.
My favorite song is probably "Lee is Free".
Confusion is Sex (bundled with Kill Yr Idols EP) is definitely in my top 20 records of all time.
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