Sonic Youth’s decorated career as one of the most iconic and pioneering bands of the indie rock movement saw them releasing fifteen studio albums, from their 1983 debut Confusion Is Sex to the polished, still-experimental farewell of 2009’s The Eternal. The band never skipped a beat, even after they broke up in 2011 when the final lineup of Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, and Mark Ibold remained prolific in their solo endeavors. Now the new In/Out/In EP of largely unheard recordings from their final decade as a unit is due out on March 18th, with the track “In & Out” released today.
If “In & Out” feels improvisational, it definitely is. Recorded during a soundcheck, it sees Gordon’s bass groove and Shelley’s pacing on the drums laying down a canvas for Gordon to hypnotically hum. Shelley explained in a statement exactly how the song came about and where it was tightened up, thus setting the stage for the type of material we can expect on the new EP:
“When you’re in the middle of a tour and all of the musical cylinders (musicians, crew + equipment) are warmed up and firing on 10, and if the room/theater/venue and its acoustics allow, you can sometimes catch magic or maybe a basic track. This magic/music/inspiration doesn’t always occur when you’d like it to show up (you know, during the show!) -however, it sometimes can be caught in small unspoken moments during soundcheck when you least expect it. “In & Out” was caught in such a situation – during soundcheck in Pomona, CA at the Fox Theatre in 2010 – Kim and I were waiting for our bandmates to arrive and our linechecks turned into a jam session turned into recording a basic track. Recorded surreptitiously by long-time SY engineer Aaron Mullan and tucked away for guitar overdubs later in 2010, and then submitted to Cory Rayborn for his Three Lobed multi-artist box set “Not The Space You Know, But Between Them”. The two SY songs that debuted and were exclusively available on that box set are now available in one standalone collection – In/Out/In – plus three (mostly) instrumental Sonic Youth jammers from 2000-2010.”
Listen to “In & Out” above and check out the album artwork and tracklist for In/Out/In below.
1. “Basement Contender”
2. “In & Out”
3. “Machine”
4. “Social Static”
5. “Out & In”
In/Out/In is out 3/18 via Three Lobed Recordings. Pre-order it here.
