Confusion Is Sex, by Sonic Youth

Confusion Is Sex

by Sonic Youth

supported by

<<SKK>> I bought this album and SWANS Filth in '85. It made me rediscover the US underground.

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$10 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
CD in jewel case with 6 panel folder. Manufactured by Sonic Youth's goofin' label.

Includes unlimited streaming of Confusion Is Sex via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 2 days

Purchasable with gift card

$12 USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Vinyl LP w black + white insert/poster.

Includes unlimited streaming of Confusion Is Sex via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 2 days

Purchasable with gift card

$18 USD or more

1.	(She's In A) Bad Mood 05:35	buy track
2.	Protect Me You 05:26	buy track
3.	Freezer Burn 03:38	buy track
4.	Shaking Hell 04:06	buy track
5.	Inhuman 04:02	buy track
6.	The World Looks Red 02:42	buy track
7.	Confusion Is Next 03:27	buy track
8.	Brother James 02:50	buy track
9.	Making The Nature Scene 03:01	buy track
10.	Lee Is Free 03:26	buy track

about

Originally slated to be a 7” to follow up their self-titled debut, Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex blossomed into the band’s first album: a brain-bludgeoning, completely fried endeavor of dissonance and disarray, a perfect soundtrack for running from a chain-wielding gang near the SIN Club.

This was the sound of 1983 New York City, nothing like the jangly roots of college radio rock starting to formulate in Athens, Georgia. It sounded like no one else on Earth, for that matter. The raw, Wharton Tiers 8-track production is dark, the Kim Gordon- scrawled cover figure art of Thurston Moore is dark, Lee Ranaldo’s back cover photo-collage and Catherine Ceresole’s crumpled-xeroxed images that adorned the inside are dark. It’s an album that moves Sonic Youth forward from their first EP almost by devolving backwards into true ugly, lo-fi primitivity.

The bareboned arsenal of junkpile guitars and implementation of alternate tunings was growing, and so were the songs that matched the individual attributes of each instrument: certain ones groan and growl a specific way that the band started to realize itself could become the compositional germ of a song.

Herein is the threshold of a new explosion of the band’s creativity, replacing the comparatively cleaner buzz of the Sonic Youth EP with guitars that spew fractured, uglier chunks of sound everywhere, held down by menacing minimalist basslines (actually played by Thurston on half of this LP, and for the only time ever on “Protect Me You,” Lee) and the brutal-yet-controlled metronomic drumming of Jim Sclavunos, augmented with replacement drummer Bob Bert’s notable bashing on “Making the Nature Scene” and grotty no-fi live rendition of “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Hearing the crashedwindow intro of “Inhuman” and subway-brake screech of “The World Looks Red,” you can attest that while Sonic Youth’s guitars are not quite yet being utilized in the totally controlled, lyrical fashion seen later on albums like Evol, Daydream Nation et al., they were well aware of the colors and tonalities that were unfolding and the possibilities presented.

Also, they were getting a grasp on adding colors to the chaos with tempered, simmering moments like Gordon’s “Shaking Hell” and Renaldo’s chimy, home-taped “Lee is Free.” “Making the Nature Scene” and “The World Looks Red” even toss in glints of hip-hop vocal approach way ahead of its time, albeit through a blender.

While its confrontationalism might have put off some critics, time has rewarded Confusion with a truly distinctive air and atmosphere in the Sonic discography, enough to have Moore declare it his fave along with the band’s swan-song The Eternal. - Brian Turner

credits

released February 1, 1983

SONIC YOUTH is:
Kim Gordon
Lee Ranaldo
Thurston Moore
Jim Sclavunos

drums on DOG and Nature Scene-- Bob Bert

Engineer: Wharton Tiers
Assistant Engineer: John Erskine
recorded at Wharton's Studio in 8 tracks
except Dog -- rec. live at The Pier, Raleigh, NC, during the SONIC YOUTH/SWANS Savage Blunder Tour--Nov. 1982
and: LEE IS FREE--recorded at Lee's on cassette
Produced by Sonic Youth w Wharton and John

insert photo by CATHERINE BACHMANN
cover photo by ROLI MOSIMANN
all design by SONIC YOUTH

VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO CATHERINE AND NICHOLAS CERESOLE WITHOUT WHOM THIS RECORD WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE!

license

about

Sonic Youth New York, New York

Sonic Youth Archive is a home to SY recordings including official, unreleased, self-released and stray SY recordings.

Recommendations

contact / help

Contact Sonic Youth

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Sonic Youth recommends:

Invisible You
by J.P. Shilo

with Mick Harvey, Kim Salmon and Steve Shelley Sonic Youth
go to album
Countless Centuries Fled Into The Distance Like So Many Storms
by Lee Ranaldo

solo lee Sonic Youth
go to album

If you like Sonic Youth, you may also like:

In/Out/In
by Sonic Youth

supported by 46 fans who also own “Confusion Is Sex”

Sonic Youth is one of those bands where you easily run out of superlatives to describe what they created. This could've easily come off as a cynical cash-grab by a band that had broken up 11 years prior to the release of this record, but that's not what this is. Some of my favourite Sonic Youth instrumentals. sentient meat
go to album
ALPHABETLAND
by X

supported by 27 fans who also own “Confusion Is Sex”

This record was announced for release when I was sick with Covid. X ,always has a special place in my heart since late 70’s early 80’s. It just made my day!! Especially the song I gotta fever!! seanstabu
go to album
Fist In The Air
by CHERUBS

Fuzzy Austin trio follow up their first album in 20 years, released in Spring 2015, with a stomping new EP of noisy rock & roll. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 26, 2016
go to album
Nature of Things
by Subsonic Eye

Effortlessly juggling mood without slowing down or stopping to question themselves, the Singaporean band give new life to an age-old indie ethos. Bandcamp Album of the Day Mar 16, 2021
go to album