Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo shares three rare releases online

Ex-Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo has released three rare releases online, including two full-length LPs and a rare cut from a Hanatarash tribute record.

The two full records were both previously released only on physical media. DEMONS: MUSIC FOR STAGE AND SCREEN saw a limited CD release in Switzerland in 2004, while Scriptures Of The Golden Eternity saw a release exclusive to vinyl in 1993.

The third upload from Ranaldo is a cover of Hanatarash’s My Dad Is Car, taken from a Hanatarash tribute album entitled Snake is Long, Don’t Fall The Audio Hole (My Father Said). The record saw a limited physical release, and is hard to find in an (official) digital format.

Ranaldo has uploaded the releases onto his Bandcamp, which he described as a place for “Stray tracks and hard to find releases, which will probably change up from time to time…”

Take a listen to the uploads below:

Lee Ranaldo joined Sonic Youth as it was being put together by Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, thanks to Moore seeing ronaldo play with Glenn Braca at 1981’s Noise Fest. He would remain in the band until its split in 2011.

Hanatarash was formed in 1984, and quickly became notorious for their extremely intense live shows, and (even for noise music), abrasive sound, involving the use of power tools and industrial machinery as well as instruments. Live shows included vocalist Yamataka Eye nearly losing a leg after strapping a circular saw to his back, cutting a dead cat in half with a machete and driving a bulldozer through the back of a venue, destroying a wall and most of the stage. One show was cut short as Eye lit a molotov cocktail and prepared to throw it onto the stage. Unsurprisingly, the group was banned from performing in many venues.

Yamataka Eye would go on to form influential noise group Boredoms, and befriend and tour with Sonic Youth.

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