GZA, Slint Join Sonic Youth for Pitchfork Fest Kickoff

In collaboration with ATP's Don't Look Back concert series, 'Liquid Swords', 'Spiderland' will be performed in full
GZA, Slint Join Sonic Youth for Pitchfork Fest Kickoff

Pitchfork is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the first night of the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival, going down July 13-15. In collaboration with All Tomorrow's Parties' Don't Look Back, we tear open the gates of Chicago's Union Park early this year to welcome three giants-- each performing, in full, one of the albums that helped make them gigantic.

We already have Pitchfork's favorite album of the 1980s: Sonic Youth delivering 1988's Daydream Nation from start to finish. Now a pair of 1990s milestones have been added, too:

Wu-Tang master lyricist GZA, aka the Genius, will perform his 1995 Shaolin showstopper Liquid Swords-- widely regarded, along with 36 Chambers, as the finest album to emerge from the Wu-Tang's heyday, and one of the greatest rap albums of all time. This also marks the first time ATP/Don't Look Back has presented a hip-hop artist.

And then there's Louisville sluggers Slint, who'll creep through their magnum opus, 1991's Spiderland, the landmark Touch and Go LP that helped chart the course of post-rock. We hope they also attempt to recreate the album's cover in Union Park's swimming pool.

All this, of course, is only the beginning. The Pitchfork Music Festival continues July 14 and 15, including recent additions Deerhunter, Menomena, Klaxons, Fujiya & Miyagi, Oxford Collapse, Beach House, Dan Deacon, and Craig Taborn's Junk Magic, alongside Cat Power, the New Pornographers, Clipse, Stephen Malkmus, De La Soul, Iron and Wine, Of Montreal, Girl Talk, Jamie Lidell, Grizzly Bear, Battles, the Ponys, Professor Murder, and Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound.

And we ain't done yet. Here's where the lineup stands thus far:

Friday, July 13:

Sonic Youth perform Daydream Nation
GZA/Genius performs Liquid Swords
Slint perform Spiderland

Saturday, July 14
:

Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues (w/members of Dirty Three, the Delta 72 & JSBX)
Clipse
Iron and Wine
Girl Talk
Grizzly Bear
Battles
Fujiya & Miyagi
Oxford Collapse
Dan Deacon
Beach House
Professor Murder
Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound

Sunday, July 15:

New Pornographers
Stephen Malkmus
De La Soul
Of Montreal
Jamie Lidell
Menomena
Klaxons
The Ponys
Deerhunter
Craig Taborn's Junk Magic

Tickets are on sale now at Ticketweb. Three-day passes cost $50, Friday night costs $15, Saturday and Sunday individual passes cost $25, and a Saturday/Sunday pass costs $35.

Keep up on all the latest festival news and details by bookmarking the Pitchfork Music Festival webpage and by tuning into the Pitchfork Music Festival podcast.

Posted by Matthew Solarski on Fri, Apr 20, 2007 at 5:55pm