Artists starting with S

Sonic Youth

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Sonic Youth, “Sonic Youth” (DGC, 1990s; original release 1982)
This is Sonic Youth’s earliest work, an EP, plus unreleased live stuff. It’s much starker and more focused than their subsequent efforts, with an almost Factory-like minimalist-funk pulse in spots, but this is also their most hypnotically pure sea-of-grey-guitar-whirr sound, unleavened by rock histrionics (much less any variety of pop). Beautifully feral, crying-in-the-urban-wilderness music.
Try 1, 2, 5, 7
10/11/14

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Experimental, Jet Set Trash And No Star

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Sonic Youth, “Experimental, Jet Set Trash And No Star” (DGC, 1994)
I suspect I’m in the minority on this one, but I think this is far and away the best album they ever made for DGC. Nothing to prove at this point, they relax and let the avant-noise settle into concise, unassuming pop song structures that capture the gently sinister sense of the marvelous on a rainy day in ‘90s NYC better than anything other than a time machine back to one of the long-gone used bookstores on East 5th Street.
Try 1, 2, 6, 14
4/7/19

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Live Masonic Auditorium

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Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, “Live Masonic Auditorium” (Alive, 2007; original recording 1978)
Band led by Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC 5, with assistance by other vets of the late-‘60s Detroit scene, a continuation of the two-guitar sludge-bulldozer blues-rock attack, but with the cosmic aspect subsumed into hard-drinking rust-belt-stomp.
Try 2, 7
6/18/18

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Longtime Companion

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Sonny and the Sunsets, “Longtime Companion” (Polyvinyl, 2012)
I remember earlier stuff from them being more in a Beat Happening-esque primitive-strum-pop vein, but this has a more steady, reserved sound as it moves squarely into country territory, to excellent effect. It has an austere, almost timeless quality, illuminated by a feeling of mountain brightness.
Try 1, 4
7/12/12

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Sound Ceremony

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Sound Ceremony, “Sound Ceremony” (One Kind Favor, 201?; originally released 1979)
In the spirit of this label’s Kenneth Higney reissue, here’s a rediscovered self-released obscurity that exists in its own musical universe. The basic ingredients are not dissimilar from Elvis Costello’s then-contemporary work – stripped-down, punked-up 50’s-style rock and roll with a bit of a Dylanesque flourish. But the jagged rhythms, tangled guitar and bewildering stream-of-consciousness lyrical forays via which said ingredients are delivered make it come off like E. Costello in the throes of a very severe manic episode. You’ve never heard anything like this before.
Try 1/3, 2/3, 2/3
9/6/13

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Superunknown

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Soundgarden, “Superunknown” (A & M, 1994)
In the wake of their often histrionic and derivative (if rousing) earlier work, Soundgarden suddenly pruned their excesses for a perfectly crafted, brutally direct exploration of bleak personal and social landscape. The combination of rhythmic dexterity and fluidity with towering torrential sonic onslaught matches their putative ‘70s model (rhymes with Fred Pepperdine) but with all the grandeur stripped away by twenty years of intervening despair and horror. They never came close before or after, but this is a masterpiece.
Try 2, 3,5
7/29/13

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Live!

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Spastics, “Live!” (Rip Off, 1998)
‘90s garage-punk, fast, hard, lean an dhooky as hell, as you’d expect given the involvement of members of the Bobbyteens and (I think) the Spoiled Brats.
P. S. Yes! This group included Kreayshawn’s mom, Elka Zolot of the spoiled Brats!
Try A/2, A/5, B/3
5/12/11

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Manos

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Spinanes, “Manos” (Subpop, 1993)
Sparse, hard-hitting, off-kilter post-punk as a frame for sharp and plaintively melodic pop and Rebecca Gates’s haunting vocals; like a mid-point between Slint and Beat Happening.
1 is gorgeous (and uncharacteristically acoustic). Also excellent: 4, 6, 9
10/13/11

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The Very Best of . .

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Spiral Staircase, “The Very Best of . . ‘ (Taragon, 1996; original recording 1968-69)
Great band name, but this is less psych than smooth, mellow, slightly paisley AM pop along the lines of the Monkees’ fluffiest stuff.
Try 3, 4
7/29/13

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Feel the Clamps

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Spray Paint, “Feel the Clamps” (Goner, 2016)
These guys are a singular and intriguing group. The structure and feel of the music is classic rattletrap garage-punk, but the guitars and vocals are completely atonal, giving the whole thing an engagingly creepy wandering-wasted-through-an-abandoned-industrial-area-late-at-night kind of mood. This is their third album, first for a mid-visibility label, and it’s their most refined and assured work to date.
Try 1, 4, 3, 5 11
11/10/16

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