Sonic Youth was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1981. Founding members Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo remained together for the entire history of the band, while Steve Shelley (drums) followed a series of short-term drummers in 1985, rounding out the core line-up. Jim O'Rourke was also a member of the band from 1999 to 2005, and Mark Ibold was a member from 2006 to 2011.
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moore was ranked 34th in Rolling Stone's 2004 edition of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Lee Mark Ranaldo is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as a co-founder of the rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Ranaldo at number 33 on its "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list. In May 2012, Spin published a staff-selected top 100 guitarist list, ranking Ranaldo and his Sonic Youth bandmate Thurston Moore together at number 1.
Jim O'Rourke is an American musician, instrumentalist, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his numerous solo and collaborative music projects, many of which are instrumental, and has been acclaimed for his music that spans varied genres, including avant-garde styles such as ambient, noise and minimalism, and styles of rock like indie rock and post-rock. He has been associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene, as well as with New York City when he relocated to it in 2000 for his tenure as a member of American indie rock band Sonic Youth. He subsequently moved to Japan and has since been a Japanese resident.
Ikue Mori, also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022.
William Hooker is an American drummer and composer.
Steven Jay Shelley is an American drummer. He is best known as the longtime drummer of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, for whom he played from 1985 until their 2011 disbandment.
Yuka Honda is a Japanese-American musician who resides in New York City. She is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and co-founder of the band Cibo Matto. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with a diverse array of musicians, including Petra Haden, Sean Lennon, Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Tricky, Harper Simon, Beastie Boys, Los Lobos, Brooklyn Funk Essentials, Mitchell Froom, Medeski Martin & Wood, Marc Ribot, Yoshimi P-We, Arto Lindsay, Edie Brickell, Vincent Gallo, Luscious Jackson, Dave Douglas, Bernie Worrell, and Caetano Veloso.
Zeena Parkins is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard harps, several custom electric harps, piano, and accordion. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and professor in the Music Department at Mills College.
Nels Courtney Cline is an American guitarist and composer. He has been a guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004.
William Winant is an American percussionist.
SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century is an album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It is a double album of versions of pieces by avant-garde composers, performed by Sonic Youth and collaborators.
Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by American musician Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. The label name is borrowed from a line in Tom Wolfe's 1968 nonfiction novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Musics was a music-related magazine that was published from 1975 to 1979.
Death Ambient is an American experimental and ambient music trio comprising Kato Hideki, Ikue Mori, and Fred Frith (guitar). The group was formed by Kato and Mori in 1995 and recorded three albums: Death Ambient (1995) Synaesthesia (1999), Drunken Forest (2007) with guest Jim Pugliese (percussion).
Tonic was a music venue located in New York City founded by Melissa Caruso Scott and John Scott. First opened in 1998, it described itself as supporting "avant garde, creative and experimental music" and known for its commitment to musical integrity. Tonic was a former kosher winery and after opening quickly became a focal point of the downtown avant-garde scene. The small and unassuming building provided a sense of intimacy by setting the performers within arms length of the audience. Tonic also doubled as a place for a variety of musicians to record live.
@ is a studio album by John Zorn and Thurston Moore. It is the first collaborative album by the duo and was recorded in New York City in February 2013 and released by Tzadik Records in September 2013. The album consists of improvised music by Zorn and Moore that was recorded in the studio in real time with no edits or overdubs.
Okkyung Lee is a South Korean cellist, improviser, and composer.
Ecstatic Peace Library is a book publishing imprint founded by Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz to release an exhibition catalogue by photographer Justine Kurland. The name is derived from Ecstatic Peace!,, and an expression found in a passage from Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The company publishes a range of photography and art-related books about the early Norwegian black metal scene, experimental jazz from the 1970s.
Jorge Roeder is a Peruvian bass player and composer. He has performed and collaborated with many jazz artists including Gary Burton, Nels Cline and John Zorn. As part of the Julian Lage Group, he received a 2010 Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, for Sounding Point.
