SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century

Untitled

SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century is a double album of covers of Avant-garde recordings by Sonic Youth and collaborators.

SYR4 features works by avant-garde classical composers such as John Cage, Yoko Ono, Steve Reich, and Christian Wolff played by Sonic Youth along with several collaborators from the modern avant-garde music scene, such as Christian Marclay, William Winant, Wharton Tiers, Takehisa Kosugi and others. The album received mixed reviews, but most critics praised the group's efforts at popularizing and reinterpreting the composers' works.

Unlike in other SYR releases SYR4's liner notes are written in English.

Track listing

Disc one

1. "Edges" (Christian Wolff) – 16:03
2. "Six (3rd Take)" (John Cage) – 3:03
3. "Six for New Time" (Pauline Oliveros) – 8:06
4. "+–" (Takehisa Kosugi) – 7:01
5. "Voice Piece for Soprano" (Yoko Ono) – 0:17
6. "Pendulum Music" (Steve Reich) – 5:55

Disc two

1. "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion" (James Tenney) – 9:09
2. "Six (4th Take)" (John Cage ) – 2:10
3. "Burdocks" (Christian Wolff) – 13:12
4. "Four6" (John Cage) – 30:01
5. "Piano Piece #13 (Carpenter's Piece)" for Nam June (George Maciunas) – 3:58
   • This piece is literally piano keys being nailed down one by one - the disc contains a QuickTime movie of one performance of the piece.
6. "Pièce enfantine" (Nicolas Slonimsky) – 1:28
7. "Treatise (Page 183)" (Cornelius Cardew) – 3:25

Notes

1. The first disc contains a Quicktime video of a performance of "Piano Piece #13 (Carpenter's Piece)," which shows Sonic Youth nailing piano keys down, one by one.
2. The recordings were also released on vinyl as a double album with a slightly different order of the tracks, this is due to the side length constrains of the LP format.
3. Coco Haley Gordon Moore provided the vocals for Disc 1's "Voice Piece for Soprano."

Personnel

Sonic Youth: Kim Gordon / Lee Ranaldo / Steve Shelley / Thurston Moore with: William Winant / Jim O'Rourke / Takehisa Kosugi / Christian Wolff / Christian Marclay / Coco Hayley Gordon Moore / Wharton Tiers

Produced by Sonic Youth with William Winant and Jim O'Rourke recorded and mixed March-August 1999, NYC Recorded by: Wharton Tiers with Luc Suer Mastered by Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound Graphics: Chris Habib

External links

• Album notes and information