Lee Ranaldo, musician, visual artist, and writer, co-founded Sonic Youth in 1981, and has been active in the New York and International music world for the past 40+ years as composer, performer and producer; exhibiting visual art and publishing several books of journals, poetry and writings on music. Most recent album In Virus Times, an instrumental acoustic piece in four parts, was released in November 2021 on Mute Records, A new collaborative quartet album with Jim Jarmusch, Churning of the Ocean, was released by Trost Records in May 2021. Recent live performances with partner Leah Singer, Contre Jour, have been large scale, multi-projection sound & light events with suspended electric guitar phenomena that challenge the usual performer/audience relationship.
The In Virus Times album was recorded in September 2020 at home in lower Manhattan during dark pandemic days, as we came out of a deadly summer. A heightened sense of anxiety stemming from the then-upcoming US Presidential elections as well as the virus seemed to pervade all aspects of life, for myself and everyone I knew. The album’s minimal quality reflects the sense of ‘motionless time’ that many of us felt. It consists of a few simple thematic elements, notes and chords ringing out, hanging in the air for a long time on that evening when the world seemed close to stopping on its axis.”
Check here for more on this album:
https://bit.ly/3AArfrJ
Previous album Names of North End Women – a collaboration with Raul Refree - was released in February 2020 on Mute. Recent live performances with partner Leah Singer, Contre Jour, have been large scale, multi-projection sound+light events with suspended electric guitar phenomena that challenge the usual performer/audience relationship. Lives and works in New York City.
info:
www.leeranaldo.com
www.sonicyouth.com
www.mute.com
recent recorded work:
IN VIRUS TIMES, Mute Records. November 2021, instrumental composition in 4 parts.
CHURNING OF THE OCEAN, Lee Ranaldo/Jim Jarmusch/Marc Urselli/Balazs Pandi, Trost Records, 2021. quartet.
NAMES OF NORTH END WOMEN, Mute Records, February 2020. album with Raul Refree.
ELECTRIC TRIM, Mute Records, 2018.