Lee Ranaldo
“Songs can go a million different ways,” declares Lee Ranaldo in the liner notes for his Matador solo album, Between The Times And The Tides, an album which will impress even the most ardent followers of Ranaldo?s work. Joined by an all-star cast including Nels Cline, Alan Licht, John Medeski, bassist Irwin Menken and longtime associate Steve Shelley (and cameos from old friends Jim O?Rourke and Bob Bert), it’s equal parts smart, confident and loose in a manner that recalls some of our favorite rock?n?roll projects...yet sounds like a fantastic new band that was apparently being assembled right under our noses.
From Lee’s liner notes:
“This group of songs started in the spring of 2010 on the invitation to play a rare acoustic show in France. During preparations for that show, ‘Lost’ came along. Some other bits came on ‘Fire Island’ that August and more tunes began appearing on various wooden guitars through the fall. At some point it seemed like a good idea to do some proper recordings of them, maybe a low-key acoustic record. Something was happening, songs were springing out. Soon afterwards Steve came in to play on some of them, and then Irwin brought his bass over. Songs can go a million different ways. Thanks to some amazing friends who stopped by to play and sing, this group of songs went to some wonderful places. Unexpected. I hope you like where they ended up.”
Lee and a lineup featuring Steve Shelley, Alan Licht and Irwin Menken will be touring in 2012.
About Lee Ranaldo (www.leeranaldo.com):
Founding member of Sonic Youth, now in 30th year; composer/visual artist/writer etc. Recent live performances with partner Leah Singer, Contre Jour, have been large scale, multi projection quadraphonic sound+light events, with Lee performing suspended electric guitar phenomena.
Lee?s visual and sound works have been on view this year in gallery and museum shows in Bratislava, Slovakia; Auckland, New Zealand; Salt Lake City, Tampa, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.
Other recent solo recordings include Les Anges Du Peche: Thurston Moore/Jean-Marc Montera/Lee Ranaldo: guitar duets [Dysmusie, 2011]; and Afternoon Saints: The Shirley Jangle (with Christian Marclay, Gunter Muller, David Watson) [Kraak, 2009].
Sonic Youth’s most recent recordings include Simon Werner a Desparu, a film soundtrack [SYR9, 2011] and The Eternal [Matador 2009]. Lee’s latest collections of writings, How Not To Get Played On The Radio [SoundBarn, 2011], and Against Refusing [Waterrow Press, 2010], enlist internet spam as a springboard for poetry. A major collection of Lee?s writings and poetry will be published by Salt Press [U.K.] in late 2012.
