Sonic Death

Untitled

Sonic Death is a live album by Sonic Youth, released in 1984. It contains live recordings from 1981 to 1983.

Many of the songs on this album appear only as fragments, often with no breaks between. Most of the songs are taken from Sonic Youth's first 3 releases, Sonic Youth, Confusion Is Sex and the Kill Yr Idols EP.

The album was originally released as a cassette on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label and was later released in the cassette and CD formats by Blast First and SST.

Because Sonic Youth use many different alternative tunings, but couldn't afford to travel with separate instruments for each tuning in the band's early years, members of the band can be heard changing tunings between songs.

Track listing

The album's cover has no track listing, and CD versions are either only 1 track, or 2 tracks (matching the 2 sides of the original cassette). The following is a list of songs that can be recognized clearly, with approximate times from the beginning of the disk:

Side one

1. "The Good and the Bad" (fragment) – 0:00–5:05
2. "She Is Not Alone" (fragment) – 7:16–10:31
3. "The Good and the Bad" (fragment) – 12:21–17:02
4. "The World Looks Red" – 17:02–19:15
5. "Confusion Is Next" – 20:26–23:44
6. "Inhuman" (fragment) – 23:44–25:16
7. "Shaking Hell" (fragment) – 29:29–30:20
8. "Burning Spear" – 30:21–33:39

Side two

1. "Brother James" (fragment) – 40:05–40:23
2. "Early American" – 40:23–47:31
3. "Burning Spear" (fragment) – 47:32–48:43
4. "Kill Yr Idols" – 48:44–51:35
5. "Confusion is Next" (fragment) – 51:36–53:05
6. "Kill Yr Idols" (fragment) – 56:18–57:03
7. "Shaking Hell" (fragment) – 58:45–60:20
8. "(She's in a) Bad Mood" (fragment) – 62:46–63:40

References

• Lawrence, Chris. Sonic Youth Discography.