Burdocks

Track Listings

1. Burdocks

2. Tuba Song

3. Trio III

Tracks:

Edges (Christian Wolf)
Six (John Cage)
Six for New Time For Sonic Youth (Pauline Oilveros)
+ - (Takehisa Kosugi)
Voice Piece For Soprano (Yoko Ono)
Pendulum Music (Steve Reich)

Tracks:

Having Never Written A Note For Percussion (James Tenney)
Six (John Cage)
Burdocks (Christian Wolff)
Four (John Cage)
Piano Piece #13 (George Maciunas)
Piece Enfantine (Nicolas Enfantine)
Treatise (Cornelius Cardew)

Amazon.com

Wildly influential four-piece Sonic Youth have self-released their version of a tribute to the 20th century: two discs of noisy interpretations of modern, experimental classical scores. The group has chosen composers whose works leave a great amount of innovation open to the performer. This chance-embracing approach--typified and in some senses originated by John Cage--is one of the crucial turning points of "new" music. What's great about this CD is that it demonstrates the freewheeling, decidedly unserious spirit behind this music, essentially combining the legacies of punk rock and out-sound. In addition to three late works by the chance-loving Cage, there are pieces by current Merce Cunningham collaborator Takehisa Kosugi, minimalist giant Steve Reich, "deep-listening" drone lover Pauline Oliveros, and Fluxus founder George Maciunas. Longtime collaborator Wharton Tiers, the young everything-ist Jim O'Rourke, and even some of the composers themselves join in on these exercises. The result is messy, fun, and anarchic, with occasional revelations (notably James Tenney's "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion"). It's not a disc to play all the time, but it is a challenging, enthused record that ideally will point listeners toward some of the most vital music of the last half of the last decade of the second millennium. --Mike McGonigal

Album Description

1999 & fourth release on their own SYR label. 13 tracks. The CD format is a double disc set that's enhanced with the CD-ROM video to George Maciunas' 'Piano Piece #13 (Carpenter's Piece) For Nam June Paik'. The album contains music composed by abstract artists like Yoko Ono, Steve Reich, John Cage and Christian Wolff. Gatefold slipcase. 1999 release.

Customer Reviews:

a tribute with poor feedbacks.......2006-04-14

The best thing with this product is undoubtly the names to whom it is contributed. One should really sincerely appreciate the good taste of SY to lift up and include such grand modern masteur composers as Wolff, Cardew, Cage and etc. Less successful however is the attempt to translate these 40 or so years old, mainly score, compositions and replace their original instrumentations and to attempt to change their structure to "rock".

Sometimes it does get endurable but at other times it completely falls out to miss the mark. Even if Wolff himself appears at times and also the renowned Marclay contributes it doesn't even come close to the originals at any time. It may be said that some of the tracks more demolishes than recaptures them.

Most of those who reviews here or rate are diehard SY fans and would probably give five stars to anything that SY put out, whatever it is. If they recorded an album of silence in hommage to Cage they would give it five stars too and call it great and important and other such stuff. We all know how that works, it is just sensual and silly.

But for those with commited interest in the musical field that is quite so misrepresented here it is but foolish to give this set of recordings too much attention.

Better is to try to get the original recordings themselves, or to get recent re-recordings of these, such like of California Ear Unit or Ars Nova ensemble etc. Pass this thing if you already know the composers work, and if you're new to these composers through this release, get the originals and compare.

I wish I could give three stars for this project, but I can't, the structures are too much weakened and the whole original soundwalls are too much torn down. If one wish to perform these works, which may not be too easy, than one should learn how to do so properly first. Otherwise, write a book...

"Keep it new".......2005-04-03

I came across this CD at my local library while searching for the works of Cornelius Cardew. My only criticism is that liner notes were not included. Liner notes would have been appreciated not only as explanations of this admittedly esoteric music, but as an opportunity for the performers to respond to potential criticism and explain their intentions. They are to be commended for taking the risk of alienating their commercial base with this collection of recent aleatoric compositions and performance art. The other reviews merely prove the point that despite their posturing, many fans of popular music are as conservative and hidebound as their great-grandparents, uncomfortable in their day with any composers after Brahms. A scan of the FM dial reveals little change in popular music over the past 50 years - lots of 3-minute songs in 4/4 time. Witness the proliferation of stations endlessly broadcasting the same 1960s to 1980s standards.

For this audience, this CD is just what was needed - a slap in the face of convention. If this sparks in anyone an interest in searching for "what else is out there," the exercise will have been well worth the effort.

Classical avant-garde experimentalism from.....a rock band?.......2004-11-21

It's hard to believe, but it's true.

The 4th CD in the SYR experimental series (titled Goodbye 20th Century, appropriatly) of Sonic Youth Records, is a fantastic double album soundscape of the finest kind. The CD has reinterpretations of post 50's era classical pieces (by such illustrious names as John Cage, Steve Reich, Christian Wolff), and they sound great for the most part. But Sonic Youth was not alone in recording this double album. They enlisted the help of many people, like Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon's daughter Coco Hayley Gordon Moore (who screams out Yoko Ono's Voice Piece for Soprano), and...surprisingly...Christian Wolff collaborates on his pieces with the band. There are many other contributors, but I can't recall them at the moment.

Judging from all the other tracks, the one that stands out the most (to me, anyway) is Pauline Oliveros' Six For New Time (composed specifically for this project). Thurston intones lyrics over rising and falling drone guitars. Genius. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other tracks that are as great, such as Steve Reich's Pendulum Music (swinging microphones over amps, creating a pendulum effect of feedback), and George Maciunas' Piano Piece #13 (hammering down the keys of a piano till they no longer produce sound).

The centerpiece of the album, though, is John Cage's Four6. There are 2 other John Cage songs on the album (Six, performed twice) but this one stands out the most. It may seem like random banging and aimless instrumental wandering, but give it a chance, and it will slowly reveal its beauty.

Overall, this album is a fantastic piece of avant-garde, and will certainly entertain the artier person in you.

If you enjoy this record, why not try other CD's in the SYR series, Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, or seek out the works of the composers on this album?

Can you guess what it is yet?.......2004-06-11

Well this is one Sonic Youth's more experimental releases ( if you hadn't gathered by now ) and it's fair to say that this is a challenging listen. You'll need to keep your wits about you and a sense of humour to contain this on first listen. It's quite possibly one of those " gets on your nerves " sort of album at first albums. But give it time and you appreciate the album that it sets out to be. You're not going to absolutely love this but you can enjoy it for what it is or yank it out of your stereo system and criticize Sonic Youth as bulls**t poseurs. It all means the same thing - nothing!

lost me as a fan.......2003-03-10

i used to love sy. during the washing machine tour they played the academy friday night, saturday afternoon for matinee and saturday night. i was at all three shows. i saw them a lollapalooze twice. the thousand leaves show at irving plaza? i was front row. those days are gone.
i had the first syr disc and liked it. not great but it was ok. after that this band died. maybe my tastes change and i mourning this whole thing because i truly was proud to be an sy fan. i felt they were alive here and now and i got to enjoy them now. not like beatles fans or zepplin fans who can no longer see them live. i mourn the loss of the smashing pumpkins, the death of kurdt cobain, the death of mia zappata, death of layne staley, breakup of soundgarden, as well as many other bands i adore so for me to love sy and they are still here and making vibrant music meant alot.
then they came out with the syr discs. i liked the first a little but after that, this disc, the 4th in this series, i was forced to leave my fanship behind. this dics is long, boring, to long, uninterseting and way too long. 30 minutes for one song which interests me not at all is too much to ask.
i see their new direction and like it not. it is pretentious in the worst way. aimless, drifting, and uninteresting. like i said, someone email me and explain me what is so good about this

Tracks:

Burdocks
Tuba Song
Trio III

Customer Reviews:

don't start here.......2004-06-18

this cd is pretty good, but not really a great demonstration of what wolff's about; nor is it the best recording of burdocks. my main gripe is that, at least burdocks, sounds far too much like the music usually played by the players assembled here, and not enough like wolff. fred frith is great, but i think he's better at playing fred frith (he might disagree). sonic youth's burdocks recording is better and also features the composer.
if you want a good introduction to wolff's music, get one of the recordings by the barton workshop; once you've got some of those, then get this. so... this cd is good and you should get it if you're a wolff-nut like me, but it isn't an appropriate introduction.

gentle,unassuming, threadbare lyrical as well.......2001-11-10

Wolff when a teenager hung out with John Cage in New York City, later Morton Feldman and Earle Brown, all affectiontly referred to now,half a century later as "The Cage School". Europeans as well made this foursome a focus for contemplation and a means for promuligating their various growing repertoire of works in the Fifties.
Later Morton Feldman became very well respected amongst the British cadre of creativity, as Cardew,Skempton, the AMM aesthetic(Rowe's utilzation of the radio as a musical instrument as well owes some debt to this school). This as well as the Satie influence( A Cage icon) in London is overwhelming.
Feldman was always the lyrical innovative denizen of pure beauty,not afraid of subjectivity whereas Cage the tireless organizer demi-god of purposeless purpose,refused that world after the Fifties.
Brown was more the doctrinaire indeterminacist,somewhere in between Cage and Feldman conceptually,finely honing creative pathways(notational, proportional means) Cage's mastodonic edifice surely implied. And Wolff as well brought his own signature to this school, writing works that were structured looking straight down the page as opposed to linearly, moment to moment. "For 1,2 or 3" is an early masterpiece, with fascinating graphics notational means,very gentle,unassuming in inflections.
Then with the advent of the Vietnam War, the "times a changin" Wolff adopted a democratic socialism following in a safer distanced perspective than the more anarchist Left Frederic Rzewski (in Rome), or the Maoist extremism of Cornelius Cardew in London.
In retrospect Wolff's sober choice of this path has certainly bore wonderful fruit for his prolific creativity.Even with respect to his early apolitical works, which although gentle, and beautiful, were coldly wrought, and arbitrary; Like a tail-ending of the Cage gesturing.His political works with genuine reference now to a committed body of the political lifeworld,is indeed interesting, thorny,unfinished,textural,yet retains a high degree of the abstract,like Charles Ives.
"Burdocks" was the last of these purely focused indeterminate graphic works,although written between 1970 and 1971, without utilization of political reference. And it is Wolff's most widely played work, well, in Europe, Germany especially. It hovers around the discreet world of pure Zen-like moments, drifting one after another in succession, no creation of a finely nuanced goal oriented object, although that is the result here in many moments. Tzadik CD label outta New York assembled some heavy hitters here with Fred Frith,Gordon Mumma,on horn(recall this Sonic Arts Union of Ann Arbor,also a post=Cage manifestation), and Wolff himself on melodica,piano.The result is intended-ly mixed and beautiful,and boring at times.
The "1992 TUBA SONG" is wonderfully disarming,like a piece for the oppressed, neglected dispossessed cadre of Tuba,it is finely, gently again wrought, unassuming like Wolff's other political music. With occasional low pedal tones,blats, flabbing down in the forbidden depths. Tubist Peter Wahrhaftig it seemed felt ashamed to simply play the childlike simple melodic lines Wolff provides, he always seemed timid in simply being musical. Some of the motives could have been a little faster to propell the line forward I thought. Wolff allows these performative freedoms, which are indeed dangerous if not strictly thought through. Ursula Oppens, and Sally Pinkus are two commanding Wolff interpreters, listen to their performances of Wolff's piano music.
The "Trio III" is more the same, threadbare moments, focused, non sequiter, gentle, various silences interrupted with seemingly personal subjectivity here.Wolff also utilizes a rhythmic device, where each player kinda dovetailed into each other,that is quite attrative.Something I've heard in his "Peace March" for flutes. Wolff can be poetic, unintentionally or from some opaque distance, as his piano "preludes". His music however remains "dangerous" and "treacherous" to perform convincingly. And what is convincingly mean?, interesting, communicative,mind engaging. We've lived long enough now with this music that we can distinguish good from bad. I know that's rather un=Zen like but still useful.

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