Sometimes the world can seem like a dark place. We, as human beings, are fairly sentient creatures: we have the ability to think, perceive and analyze. It is inevitable that we will all become a little depressed sometimes and find it difficult to see the purity; the good which is so clearly all around us through the superficial negativities which inhabit portions of our lives. When you find yourself feeling this way, it may be a good idea to put on a record such as SYR3: Invito Al Ĉielo by Sonic Youth and Jim O’Rourke.
When I first started driving, I had a 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlas Supreme which did not have a CD player. I transferred albums that I thought I would frequently want to hear onto cassette tapes. During my senior year of High School, SYR3: Invito Al Ĉielo was definitely one of the most played albums in my automobile. Anyone who is familiar with this recording may find this fact fairly surprising. It is a creepy album (though I would argue that it is also strangely beautiful) and it has a fairly dark sound. The fact is though that I found myself escaping into its’ world on a daily basis. I wasn’t particularly depressed; I was just in High School (as if there is a difference).
SYR3 opens with the twenty one minute “Invito Al Ĉielo”. As the track begins, the listener finds him or herself in a world of slowly spiraling feedback drones, scratched guitar strings and tuneless, laborious saxophone bleating. As these noises resonate and build, they begin to cross paths, each breaking off pieces of its’ precedent and supporting the last breath of the receding notes as the eerily clamoring cloud of barely-corporeal music rises into a fully three dimensional soundscape. The listener is surrounded by a post-apocalyptic world which is far bleaker than anything they possibly could have dreamed up. The tension builds steadily, yet discreetly until it finally unwinds and a gentle, confident drum beat enters along with Kim Gordon’s familiar speak/sing vocals:
The children won’t play
It’s raining outside
You got to
You got to decide
About that time
About that time that you were right
Don’t forget
Don’t forget the one who gave you the engine of your memory
Do trust
In love or fly for free
Don’t forget the memory
The second track, “Hungara Vivo”, is significantly shorter at just over six minutes. Jim O’Rourke’s presence is clearly felt in the gurgling, bell-like electronics which sound startlingly pretty after the opener. Some may view it is a palette cleanser but it has a calm, kinetic quality which makes it impressive in its’ own right. This is a song which uses silence as a primary instrument. The space between the notes seems to be teeming with energy and creativity.
The third and final track, “Radio-Amatoroj” thrusts the listener into the middle of the end of the world with blasts of static and pounding percussion which frequently fade out only to come roaring back before it is gone again. This pattern repeats for about thirty minutes. Subtle changes in timing keep the noise engaging and encourage the listener to restart the album immediately after it ends. I always let the automatic tape-return do its thing.
SYR3: Invito Al Ĉielo retains its power as a great album. Its gravitas is inseparable from my senior year of High School: that time in your life when everything feels utterly important and doomed by a sense of finality. It is necessary, during a time like that to have some perspective: to have a creepy place to go to which allows your own world to feel great by comparison.
