Noise guitar legend Thurston Moore meets free jazz drummer Frank Rosaly – in a performance that really seems to open up new paths for both musicians! Moore's got a lot of texture in his work here – and a lot of space at times, too – an ear for notes and sounds that almost references the 70s British era of guitar improvisation at points, with currents of the American scene from the next decade that Moore helped shape so strongly. Rosaly's very loose in the setting – spare when needed, more full-on at other points – as he and Thurston shape the sound of a marshmallow moon in an improvisation that runs for more than 30 minutes! CD

A pretty great solo performance from the legendary Thurston Moore – recorded at the Art Institute Of Chicago, as live accompaniment to the film Street, by James Nares – and maybe some of the most compelling sounds we've heard from Moore in awhile! The set features just solo electric guitar, in one long track – improvising over the space of an hour, with an especially great ear for sonic textures and very subtle shapes – a gentler, more personal version of the noise in which Thurston has been steeped for many many years – and music that's every bit as beautiful as the images on the screen! CD

Legendary jazz drummer William Hooker is in some pretty heady territory here – improvising alongside two different guitarists, both of whom really push the sound in ways that are different than some of Hooker's other records! Thurston Moore provides plenty of freaky sonic fuzz in the first half – and Elliott Sharp is pictured playing a twin-necked guitar in the second – both players who are no strangers to longform improvisation, and whose energy is easily met, if not beaten, but Hooker's incredible command of the drum Kit! The track with Moore is titled "Sirius" – and the one with Sharp is "The Hat & Its Train". LP, Vinyl record album

Includes remixes by William Orbit, Moby, Adrian Sherwood, John McEntire, and Thurston Moore. LP, Vinyl record album

Music from Thurston Moore, the Stone Roses, Teenage Fanclub, White Zombie, the Roots, Hardvark, Sonic Youth, Southern Culture On The Skids, and Elastica, CD

A fantastic package that explores the full range of genius on the legendary avant label BYG/Actuel – one of the most important European imprints at the end of the 60s! Actuel was home to some of the best avant garde jazz coming out of Paris in the late 60s and early 70s – an especially important document of the post-68 revolution in European music – at a time when so many American players where showing up in France, and finding great opportunities in the new freedoms of the scene! The package features seminal sides from US avant musicians – like Steve Lacy, Anthony Braxton, Clifford Thornton, Don Cherry, Jimmy Lyons, Archie Shepp, Sonny Sharrock, Sunny Murray, Grachan Moncur III, and The Art Ensemble Of Chicago – and it also features work by European musicians like Claude Delcloo and Jacques Coursil, plus genre-busting work by MEV and Gong as well. The 3CD box features a 48 page book – with lots of great illustrations, and notes from Thurston Moore and Byron Coley – and the set features 26 long tracks in all! CD

The second album in Sonic Youth's earlier run as one the most exciting bands in underground rock, and possibly the greatest album in their long career! It doesn't take a genius to ram a screwdriver into the neck of a guitar, but when they're at their best (as they are on EVOL, Sister, and Daydream Nation), Sonic Youth is dizzyingly great. Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo spin acres of white noise beauty on Sister, a melodic hurricane that really set the standard for the band's future work. It's way more than the lull, lilt, then ROAR style of indie rock that blanketed the late 80s/early 90s scene – the songs run deeper than that – with subtleties galore within all the clatter, making the frenzy around the corner that much more powerful. Essential! "Schizophrenia", "Catholic Block", "Beauty Lies In The Eye", "Stereo Sanctity", "Tuff Knarl", "White Cross", "Master Dik" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

Indie rock elders Sonic Youth's first high profile album on an indie label in about 20 years – the group's first for Matador, and a skillful mix of insistent, exciting melodic precision, barbed lyricism, random bursts of noise, and enough layered hypnotic guitar errata that you'll hear something new each time you come back to it! Through the years they continued to be pretty exciting, and for the most part managed to avoid repeating themselves, while still working in something of a comfort zone – once throwing a screwdriver in the old noise rock guitar neck with the addition of Jim O'Rourke to the group, and with O'Rourke's departure, former Pavement player Mark Ibold on bass. Kim Gordon is now freed up to be play guitar, making for a triple threat along with Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo – and it's a riveting sound. They don't reinvent the wheel on The Eternal – but they steer into adventurous waters – and as long as they're making records this good we're hoping they live up to title! Includes "Sacred Trickster", "Anti-Orgasm", "Leaky Lifeboat (For Gregory Corso)", "Antenna", "What We Know", "Calming The Snake", "Poison Arrow", "Malibu Gas Station", "Thunderclap For Bobby Pyn", "No Way", "Walkin Blue", "Massage The History". CD

For many folks, this is the first truly great album from Sonic Youth – the first in which the group found any kind of a groove at all! Sonic Youth had been sputtering around the New York art punk scene since the early 80s, but things didn't really come together until this work of aggressively fractured genius hit the streets in '86. New drummer Steve Shelley's arrival brought a solid backdrop to Thurston Moore's and Lee Renaldo's "Sister Ray" worshipping electric squall, and it made a world of difference. The standout is "Expressway To Yr Skull", one of the great underground rock songs of the 80s – one that had the group working what could almost be called a melodic style, albeit one filled with noisy clatter. Arguably the point where Sonic Youth stopped started making some of the most interesting and rewarding indie rock of all time! Other tracks include "Tom Violence", "Shadow Of A Doubt", "Star Power", "Green Light", and "Bubblegum". LP, Vinyl record album

The second album in Sonic Youth's earlier run as one the most exciting bands in underground rock, and possibly the greatest album in their long career! It doesn't take a genius to ram a screwdriver into the neck of a guitar, but when they're at their best (as they are on EVOL, Sister, and Daydream Nation), Sonic Youth is dizzyingly great. Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo spin acres of white noise beauty on Sister, a melodic hurricane that really set the standard for the band's future work. It's way more than the lull, lilt, then ROAR style of indie rock that blanketed the late 80s/early 90s scene – the songs run deeper than that – with subtleties galore within all the clatter, making the frenzy around the corner that much more powerful. Essential! "Schizophrenia", "Catholic Block", "Beauty Lies In The Eye", "Stereo Sanctity", "Tuff Knarl", "White Cross", "Master Dik" and more. LP, Vinyl record album