Silver Session

Sonic Youth | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 14, 1998)
• Original Release Date: July 21, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Skr Records
• ASIN: B000007RVT
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,782 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Similar to Brian Eno's "On Land", October 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Silver Session (Audio CD)

The liner notes talk about how the band plugged every guitar they owned into every amp they had and turned everything up to 10 and recorded the ear-splitting oceans of feedback in their Tribeca studio one day in a fit of frustration over an upstairs band that was drowning out their attemts to put vocals on what would become "A Thousand Leaves". Apparently they then took the tapes of this apocalyptic noise assault and mixed them down into something very, very different from what you would expect from such a description.

I am very familiar with the band's side projects so I thought this might sound like something along the lines of "Terry's Carrot" or Thurston's "Barefoot In Your Head" w/Borbotomagus.

The "Silver Sessions" EP is unexpected! The result is gorgeous and very, very soothing. What a beautiful album! Grating, ear-splitting and annoying? Nope. Minimal? Yep. Dense? Yep. Ambient? Weirdly... yep. The sounds on this CD sound like distant airplane or dolphin noises far off on a breezy Summer day. Like something out of a wonderful dream. A beautiful, beautiful CD that I listen to again and again... and I think is as transcendant as Brian Eno's "On Land" album.

Also... recorded as a tribute to a troubled fan (Jason Knuth) who commited suicide... and all prodeeds go to the suicide prevention hotline or something.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cosmic lullabies, June 6, 2000

By 

Micah Newman (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silver Session (Audio CD)

Granted, this isn't actually music. But the sound etched onto this CD is a glorious one, like stars conversing to each other across space. It sounds reverent, glistening, and multidimensionally spacious. And all it is is guitar feedback and amp noise. This is the only CD I can actually fall asleep to; actual music keeps my attention and thereby keeps me awake, but this stuff just streams out of the speakers and flows over you like radiant waves. Not for everyone, sure, but I like it a lot.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If guitars were glaciers, September 20, 2002

By 

"skfl" (Troy, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silver Session (Audio CD)

I have seen reviews of this calling it Sonic Youth's "Metal Machine Music". Well, I don't really rank that as an insult, but I guess that is for another review... The idea would be by labelling it as such, the listener would find this harsh, chaotic, even unlistenable. Nothing could be further than the truth. This is what guitars would sound like if played by glaciers. Feedback rolls in and out, creating beautiful beating patterns as the different waves of noise crash against each other. This isn't music to get you pumped for a Saturday night on the town, nor should you throw this on for a first date (if you could, though, that one's a KEEPER) - this is music to be absorbed by and to get lost in.