Pitchfork

One wonders sometimes, with all the other stuff they've always got going on, if the members of Sonic Youth ever have to remind themselves that they're in Sonic Youth. Like, can you picture Thurston, jamming out with Original Silence, thinking, "Oh, crap, we just signed to Matador! I better call Lee and get my lanky behind to the studio!" Or Kim's hanging out with Yoshimi and Julie Cafritz and realizes she's gotta write a bassline for that pesky other band of hers? There's been a wealth of happenings with the members of Sonic Youth lately, though precious little of it has to do with Sonic Youth proper.

But more about those side gigs in a minute...

Firstly, the four Yoofs managed to get together in the same room recently to collaborate with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and composer Takehisa Kosugi on a brand new piece of music. The piece will soundtrack a new work by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company that will debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in mid-April, in celebration of choreographer Merce Cunningham's 90th birthday. The Merce Cunningham at 90 piece will be performed on April 16-19. (You might remember the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as being the people who brought Radiohead and Sigur Rós together back in 2003.)

So, yeah. Sonic Youth + Led Zeppelin + dancers = MASSIVE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM EXPLOSION!!!

Also, that traveling, career-spanning art exhibit, "Sonic Youth Etc.: Sensational Fix" is on display until January 4 in Bolzano, Italy. It'll move to the Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf, Germany from January 31-April 26, Konsthall in Malmo, Sweden May 29-September 6, and Centro Huarte de Arte Contemporaneo in Navarra/Nafarroa, Spain from October 2009 through January 2010.

Other than that, and presumably working on their Matador debut, Sonic Youth as a unit has been pretty quiet recently. Individually, though, they have a hell of a lot going on.

Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label recently offered up an LP from a trio comprised of saxophonist Paul Flaherty, Vampire Belt guitarist (and Thurston's partner in Northampton Wools) Bill Nace, and Thurston himself. The three-track set, Flaherty/Nace/Moore, was crafted last winter, and sports three very amusingly-titled tracks: "Sex", "Drugs" and "Lavender". Northampton Wools promise their debut LP from the label shortly, and Ecstatic Peace will also issue an album by Hat City Initiative, a group featuring Thurston and his brother Gene Moore, as well as a forthcoming collaboration between Thurston and noise god Prurient. Thurston also just issued an ultra-limited edition cassette to Destructive Industries which they call his "most encompassing and introverted work to date". We'd tell you more about it, except it is sold the hell out. Moore also recently interviewed director Spike Jonze for Interview magazine, and introduced a screening of David Bowie videos at NYC's Museum of Modern Art earlier this week.

Moving on, Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley pops up on Spanish singer Christina Rosenvinge's recent album Tu Labio Superior, which was recorded and mixed by Rather Ripped producer John Agnello at Sonic Youth's studio in Hoboken, NJ. Rosenvinge will hit the road in Spain with Shelley, Chris Brokaw, and Jeremy Wilms early next year.

SY guitarist Lee Ranaldo and photographer Leah Singer (his wife) have an art exhibit entitled "Space Within These Lines Not Dedicated" hanging at the Teaching Gallery at Troy, New York's Hudson Valley Community College through December 6. They also have two art shows scheduled for February 2009: ILoveYouIHateYou" at Magasin3 in Stockholm and "Between You & Me" at CNEAI (Centre national de l'estampe et de l'art imprim) in Paris. Ranaldo is also producing a series of three 12" singles by the French band HIFIKLUB, set to be released in 2009. And he shows up in the new documentary film FLicKeR, about artist Brion Gysin's "dream machine."