We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

In​/​Out​/​In

by Sonic Youth

supported by
sentient meat
sentient meat  thumbnail
sentient meat Sonic Youth is one of those bands where you easily run out of superlatives to describe what they created. This could've easily come off as a cynical cash-grab by a band that had broken up 11 years prior to the release of this record, but that's not what this is. Some of my favourite Sonic Youth instrumentals. Favorite track: Out & In.
Lily Loring
Lily Loring thumbnail
Lily Loring This isn’t a professional review but I have absolutely adored Sonic Youth for so many years. I just finished listening to this on vinyl and all I could think was just, “woah.” They killed it on every track. 5/5 Favorite track: Machine.
Ky Ren/Aid An
Ky Ren/Aid An thumbnail
Ky Ren/Aid An Another amazing album by Sonic Youth.. Love making art to this. Favorite track: Out & In.
more... more...
/
  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    12" 160g black vinyl album pressed by Smashed Plastic in Chicago. Featuring design work by D. Norsen, liner notes by Brian Turner.

    Includes unlimited streaming of In/Out/In via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $21 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Compact disc version of the album featuring design by Darryl Norsen and liner notes by Brian Turner.

    Includes unlimited streaming of In/Out/In via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9 USD  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 130 Three Lobed Recordings releases available on Bandcamp and save 65%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Nimbus, When The Roses Come Again, A Day Behind The Deadline, Glass Band, Arc of Day, Come On, No Hashish, No Change Money, No Saki Saki, Almanac Behind, and 122 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $347.55 USD or more (65% OFF)

     

1.
2.
In & Out 07:35
3.
Machine 03:37
4.
5.
Out & In 12:18

about

*NOTE - For physical bundles with exclusive shirts, please visit sonicyouth.kfu.store (North America/non-EU ROW) and shop.bingomerch.com (EU)*

In mulling over their career, it’s staggering to realize that Sonic Youth not only delivered a healthy slab of releases as a unit but also have a myriad of shelved material still waiting for broader ears. While the group’s current Bandcamp abode lays out a generous amount of it, a bunch more has yet to surface. And it’s a massive mountain to chip away at in the sense of the group output alone; individual members’ projects are a whole other game, needless to say. "In/Out/In" ably delivers a new slab of mostly-unheard Sonic righteousness, with a scope on the post 2000-era band in especially zoned/exploratory regions.

The 80’s and 90’s continually saw Sonic Youth reminding everyone that their jams ran free alongside song craft and visible development album to album; there were Peel excursions, dipping toes into soundtrack work starting with 1986’s "Made In USA", and of course great impromptu expansive takes of tried and true previous material onstage. The millennial establishment of home turf studio spaces in NYC then NJ greatly egged on forays into improvisation and composition on their own clock as evidenced in "Goodbye 20th Century" and the plethora of SYR releases that trickled out side by side between major release albums. At this juncture they had already created a cultural template for a whole new breed of rock heads who, in turn, entered a feedback loop to SY itself, which cultivated more of its own new moves informed by the very fandom they had for their acolytes all the while pushing the band outward to uncharted fields. Jim O’Rourke’s residency had already influenced the band’s material in part into denser, longer, meditative paths. Mark Ibold’s entry for their swan song "The Eternal" also allowed for more of this exploration with Kim Gordon having more room to commit to third guitar. However "The Eternal" also took more cues from Ibold’s bottom-end swing and perhaps dialed back the expansiveness of the "NYC Ghosts and Flowers" and "Sonic Nurse" era a notch in a cool way, making it one of the best group efforts for me, anyway. Perhaps this fueled some of these tracks here, in an already comfortable zone with a new lineup and new drive to take sideroads to even more outer realms.

"In/Out/In" reveals their last decade to be still heavy on the roll-tape and bug-out Sonic Youth. Not all recorded in one session but rather spread out over 2000-2010, the sequencing here is especially well thought out. Opening with the 2008 “Basement Contender” we get a super-unfiltered glimpse of the band at Kim and Thurston’s Northampton house creating a gentle springboard of Venusian choogle, with phased Lee lappings at cascading Thurston figures forming a simmering soundtrack. “Machine” offers another instrumental track from "The Eternal" sessions and is a steamy exercise in stop-start rhythmic grunt amidst a jungle of chiming and upward spiraling chord progressions. We’ve also got the extended score offering “Social Static” from the Chris Habib/Spencer Tunick film of the same name, draping white sheets of noise over your head then descending into a gauzy maw of car-alarm guitars and ambient-yet-disruptive turbulence that eventually subsides into a smoky coda. Two more tracks round out the set both culled from a Three Lobed box set of various artists from 2011 called "Not the Spaces You Know, But Between Them": “In & Out” quietly resembles Can in a cave with dripping stalactites of Kim’s wordless tone rumble and was recorded at a soundcheck in Pomona California and their home Hoboken turf in 2010. “Out & In” from 2000 was done in their late downtown NYC studio and serves to close out this LP’s last 12 minutes as a reminder of what they got up to with O’Rourke there. More gentle time shift chord framework erupts into molten fury three minutes in, before mutating into the sonic equivalent of a slowly collapsing star.

Casting an audio net over the entire instrumental/outtake oeuvre of Sonic Youth’s long history isn’t something easily committed to a single release without a doubt. Hearing these tracks in comparison to, say, 1986’s "Made In USA" material shows the massive leaps they took over the years. Whereas ’86 showed them freshly discovering their go-with-the-flow instrumental abilities for a soundtrack, their last decade showed them complementing the ambience with assured twists and turns that only came to be through their inimitable and rooted telepathy. That, plus the freedom to compose in more comfortable environs other than dank Ludlow Street rental spaces (hard to believe "Daydream Nation" was created in a claustrophobic practice basement) most assuredly was a component in their continued paths of discovery. Shifting on the drop of a dime from quiet/deep forays into full on noised-out Autobahn stomps with Steve Shelley at the wheel, they painted detailed and varied brush strokes and continually created organic sounds that undoubtedly carried the signature sound of the band, while ringing loud with their continual drive to free themselves from just that. Enjoy this capsule.

-Brian Turner, 2021-

credits

released March 18, 2022

"Basement Contender" - Recorded by Lee Ranaldo in Northampton, MA in 2008. Performed by Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley.

"In & Out" - Recorded at soundcheck in Pomona, CA with additional recording and mixing at Echo Canyon West in Hoboken, NJ by Aaron Mullan in 2010. Performed by Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley.

"Machine" - Recorded and mixed by Aaron Mullan in 2008. Performed by Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley.

"Social Static" - Recorded and mixed by Sonic Youth at Echo Canyon (NY) in 2000. Performed by Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley.

"Out & In" - Recorded and mixed by Aaron Mullan at Echo Canyon (NY) in 2000. Performed by Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley.

All songs by Sonic Youth except “Social Static” and “Out & In” by Sonic Youth and Jim O’Rourke.

Published by Sonik Tooth Music. Administered by Songs of Kobalt Music Publishing (BMI). “Social Static” and “Out & In” also published by Field Code Music (BMI).

Mastered in 2021 by Carl Saff

Design by D. Norsen

Management: SAM

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Three Lobed Recordings Jamestown, North Carolina

Three Lobed Recordings is a boutique record label that specializes all flavors of psychedelia. The label was started in 2000 and is largely operated by cats.

contact / help

Contact Three Lobed Recordings

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Three Lobed Recordings recommends:

If you like In/Out/In, you may also like: