1.	Sacred Trickster	2:11
2.	Anti-Orgasm	6:07
3.	Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)	3:32
--
4.	Antenna	6:13
5.	What We Know	3:54
6.	Calming the Snake	3:35
7.	Poison Arrow	3:42
8.	Malibu Gas Station	5:39
9.	Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn	2:38
--
10.	No Way	3:52
11.	Walkin Blue	5:21
12.	Massage the History	9:43
13.	Pay No Mind [JAPAN CD BONUS TRACK]	3:04
14.	No Garage [JAPAN CD BONUS TRACK]	3:48
13.	Burning Shame [iTunes BONUS TRACK]	3:54

 
NOTES

The Eternal is Sonic Youth's 17th album. Breaking the clockwork-like routine they've followed for the last decade, there was a 3-year gap between this and their last studio LP "Rather Ripped", for the first time since "Washing Machine"/"A Thousand Leaves". Several factors played into this, like relearning the 'Daydream Nation' material around the time in their standard cycle when they'd begin working on new tunes. However, the fact that this album would be their first since leaving Geffen after a 20-year relationship meant that they had to find the right venue to release it, which they did, in Matador Records. This is also the first album recorded with Mark Ibold on bass, no stranger to Matador Records himself. Unlike 'Rather Ripped', Kim plays no bass on this album, instead returning to guitar on all tracks except the vicious opener 'Sacred Trickster', also the first single. Another noted first is that many of the songs feature all three vocalists in the band singing in unison, or playing off each other, a practice SY had rarely employed until now.

HISTORY

On August 29th, 2008 in Philadelphia, one of only 20 shows played that year, SY opened with two brand new songs, then titled "No Way" and "Mars". Both already had vocals, by Thurston and Kim respectively. They played these songs at the remaining three shows that year, and began working on further songs in their new Echo Canyon West studio (located in Hoboken, NJ). Through November and December, they would write and record material, and in January they began sharing frequent details of the mixing process (with John Agnello at Water Music) via their Twitter page at http://twitter.com/thesonicyouth:

01/17/09 9:47am: mixing our new album with John Agnello. we mixed our first song yesterday - it used to be called 'Mars'...now it's called.....

01/17/09 12:04pm: calming the snake. today's song is called sacred trickster (?)

01/17/09 5:26pm: onto mixing song #3. so far we've mixed: 1. calming the snake 2. sacred trickster and a special cover song. working 2 studios at once today.

01/18/09 9:40am: mix #3 - massaging the history - ??!!?? is it really called that?

01/18/09 5:28pm: mix #3 completed - massage the history.

01/19/09 6:14pm: john thinks he's teaching us a thing or two about feedback. in the meantime mix#4 was completed - something about a Mailbu Gas Station

01/21/09 1:58pm: mixing first Lee vocal today

01/21/09 8:23pm: 5th song mixed with john - could be called 'that's what we know', features mark ibold on geezer bass.

01/23/09 9:59pm: 'anti-orgasm' mixed , spent some time w/ matador folks and sam. now we're ready for a busy weekend of mixing.

01/25/09 11:31am: consider yourself mixed! leaky lifeboat

01/26/09 6:50am: another song mixed last night, one of my current favorites - antennae. possibly working on 2 mixes today. first one is on the board ...

01/26/09 2:48pm: it's a 2 mix day. poison arrow is finished and on our way to mix 2 later tonight. it's hard to believe we're nearly done mixing.

01/26/09 10:30pm: against all odds 'bobby pyn' is mixed.

01/27/09 05:45pm: another one mixed : no way. are we done? a few fix-ups yet to work on tonight. work on the artwork is continuing....

01/27/09 09:08pm: some more work done to 'what we know' featuring lee on vocals - and now it's finished....again.

01/28/09 11:40pm: mixing a secret 'something' for Matador early shoppers

01/30/09 3:07pm: john "boom" agnello reports that 'the eternal' is mastered.

On March 3rd, an mp3 montage combining snippets of all tracks from the album was released via Newsweek.com, followed by the announcement that "The Eternal" would be the next album featured in Matador's "Buy Early Get Now" promotion, where you can preorder the album and receive additional bonuses. In this case, your participation scored you an exclusive limited edition live LP from the July 4th, 2008 Battery Park concert in NYC, as well as a pre-release stream of the album, a poster, early access to tour ticket presales, and exclusive mp3s. Following the release of two exclusive 7"s for Record Store Day on April 18th (one containing SY's cover of Beck's "Pay No Mind", the other featuring a demo of Anti-Orgasm entitled "No Garage") an mp3 of 'Sacred Trickster' was issued on April 20th, and the stream of the entire album went live on April 28th. The first bonus download was available on May 12th, a lossless live version of "Silver Rocket" from the Battery Park show that was not included on the LP. The next bonus mp3 was an unexpected and seemingly unrelated 1987 demo of "Catholic Block", otherwise unavailable. This was followed quickly by a live version of "Brave Men Run" from 1985 in Chicago -- later included on the web-only Mix Tape #7 and the "Give.Listen.Help" compilation released in late 2009. Later in June they released another mp3, an instrumental Eternal outtake called "Machine". By this point, the album's June 9th release date had come and gone and the summer 2009 North American "Eternal" tour was about to start.

...but let's back it up a bit! While all of this Matador promotional wizardry was brewing, Sonic Youth were keeping busy. On March 29th, they played their first show in Chile, a crushing set filled with classics and the debut of album opener "Sacred Trickster". In mid-April they did four special shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for choreographer Merce Cunningham's 90th birthday, where they performed some uniquely designed movements to accompany the dance exhibit, alongside former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and former SYR4 collaborator Takehisa Kosugi. They then headed to Europe for a handful of shows, debuting "Antenna" and "What We Know". On April 28th they appeared on Later...with Jools Holland to perform "Sacred Trickster", "Antenna", "What We Know", and "Teenage Riot". Mid-May marked another appearance at the "No Fun Fest" in Brooklyn, performing a blistering improvisation set minus Lee. The band also filmed an in-studio performance for Pitchfork's online A>D>D series, before four more Europe gigs where they debuted "Leaky Lifeboat" and "Anti-Orgasm". On the day "The Eternal" was released, they played a secret gig at the SoHo Apple Store which was recorded for a future iTunes exclusive EP. Two more television appearances followed, the band's sixth appearance on Letterman (performing 'Sacred Trickster') and the band's first appearance on Jimmy Fallon (performing 'No Way').

The North American tour began on June 27th in Chicago and featured the debuts of "Poison Arrow", "Malibu Gas Station", and "Massage the History", with "Walkin Blue" and "Thunderclap" to shortly follow. As can be expected from SY, the set lists featured the new album in its entirety (although "Thunderclap" was shelved after only 3 performances), and a handful of old tunes. The sheer number of old tunes in rotation set a record: a total of 43 different songs were performed in 2009. Many 'Daydream' songs remained constants, and tracks like 'World Looks Red' 'She is Not Alone' 'PCH' 'Shadow of a Doubt' or 'Shaking Hell' were swapped in on any given night. Curiously absent were any Geffen-era tracks, aside from 'Bull in the Heather' or a few 'Rather Ripped' tracks that resurfaced just once. Notable additions to the set list were longtime fan favorite "Stereo Sanctity" for the first time since 1993, and the return of "Death Valley '69" in the spirit of "The Eternal", with all members singing in unison. After two shows in Japan, the band was scheduled to return to the west coast in September, but a tennis injury to Lee's wrist required postponement of those dates (and indeed cancellation of the band's appearances on Jimmy Kimmel and Austin City Limits). His wrist healed in time for a small group of shows in Europe in October, including a 7-song Canal+ performance for French TV. November saw the band's return to Sao Paulo, Brazil and five days of gigs in New York and Boston. The band capped off the year with a return to the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in the UK, this time headlined by My Bloody Valentine, and one last show in Dublin.

PACKAGING

The CD comes in a cardboard gatefold sleeve with a 1998 John Fahey painting entitled "Sea Monster" serving as the album's cover. The band are once again credited as "sonic-youth", a callback to albums like "Confusion is Sex", "Bad Moon Rising", and "Sister". The inner gatefold features drawings by Sunburned Hand of the Man's John Moloney on both panels. In the left sleeve is another mini-sleeve with Clarence Major art on one side and art by Thurston's brother Gene Moore on the reverse. Inside this sleeve is a double-sided white-on-black text sheet with all of the album's information. In the right sleeve is a mini-sleeve with a Jutta Koether image on one side and a photograph of Johnny Thunders by Danny Fields on the reverse. This jacket holds the disc, which features a close-up of the Fahey painting on the face. The back of the album is a Kim Gordon photograph of clocks with the song titles at the top. The vinyl more or less follows this equation although each mini-sleeve contains a record, and the text from the info slip is incorporated into the letterbox strips of the Johnny Thunders image (which contains the first record, so they're switched from the CD package order). The back cover has the first 2 sides at the top of the image and the last 2 sides at the bottom. Also included is a CD-cover-sized sticker of the album cover, and a piece of paper with an mp3 download code.

SY's new Japan label Hostess elected to release a special "Sonic Tooth Box" edition of the album, which contained two CDs (the album itself with the Record Store Day bonus tracks, "Pay No Mind" and "No Garage" as well as the "Live at Battery Park" show that was offered via Buy Early Get Now, with the bonus track "Silver Rocket" added. Also included was a t-shirt designed by Toga Nejico and a 32-page "Sonic Death" art zine. It also contained lyrics for the entire album (the only place they're available).

CREDITS/LINERS

Produced by John Agnello & Sonic Youth
Mastered January 2009 by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, NYC

Recorded November/December 2008 by John Agnello and Aaron Mullan at Echo Canyon West, NJ
Additional recording January 2009 by John Agnello at Bisquiteen, MA
Assistant: Justin Pizzoferrato

Mixed January 2009 by John Agnello at Water Music, NJ
Assistant: James Frazee
ProTools engineer: Ted Young

All songs by Sonic Youth
Published by Sonik Tooth, BMI
Management: SAM

Front cover: John Fahey, Sea Monster (1998), courtesy of the John Fahey Trust
Back cover: Kim Gordon, Untitled (2006)
Gatefold: John Moloney, Not Cool/Cool (2008)
Inner sleeve 1: Clarence Major, Carnival Women, Venice 1985, Gene Moore, Diethylamide (1969)
Inner sleeve 2: Jutta Koether, Hysterics - Living Desire, Disarmed (2000),
Danny Fields, Johnny Thunders in the Back Room of Max's After Stooges Show (1973)

Photography: Cody Ranaldo (Fahey, Koether, Major, Moore)

www.sonicyouth.com

sonic-youth

Steve Shelley
Lee Ranaldo
Kim Gordon
Thurston Moore
Mark Ibold

Thanks: J, Luisa + Rory, Coco Hayley Gordon Moore,
Louise Erdman, Leah Singer, Cody+Sage+Frey Ranaldo,
Vicki Farrell, Sharon Agnello, Carlos van Hijfte,
Eric Dimenstein, Andrew Kesin, John Silva,
Michele Fleischli, Michael Meisel, John Cutcliffe,
Richard Grabel, Dawn Nepp, Artie Smith, Chris Stone

Ron Asheton forever

ADDITIONAL NOTES

For more information on songs (including lyrics, who played what, when the songs were first and last performed, and other trivia), please visit the Song Database.

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