May 01, 2002

 
I can't describe the intense joy that I get when I hear "Karen Revisited" from the newest Sonic Youth LP. It just...shimmers. It starts off as a pop song with Lee Renaldo's voice floating around over this wonderful riff, noise swirling around in the background. It builds up to a chorus, slows down, then moves along to this huge climax around the 2:23 mark with Lee singing "ask me if I care/ miscommunication/ Karen". The song rides out on that wave and then crashes, turning into this droning blast of percussionless noise. After a minute and a half of that it mellows out and begins a reverb heavy passage which reminds me a lot of the ending of "Expressway To Yr Skull" from EVOL. The song ends by melting into a live recording of the band doing a very Sun Ra-ish improvisation, fading out into applause.

They really should be proud of themselves, especially Lee Renaldo - he certainly steals Murray Street for himself with this song. This man really needs to sing lead more often - his voice is just so lovely over that riff, his lyrics about revisiting an old stoner love really suit the motif of the music very well.