A collaboration between two visionary artists, Names Of North End Women sees former Sonic Youth guitarist and vocalist Lee Ranaldo team up with Spanish producer and musician Raul Refree. The results are inspired, with Raul (who produced the astounding Electric Trim & Acoustic Dust ) crafting subtle, ambient backdrops for Lee’s immersive soundscapes. Beautifully packaged in a digipack that’s closer to a piece of art than your typical record sleeve, the entire package is another example of the attention to detail that is the hallmark of Lee’s output, whilst the decision to promote Refree from producer to full collaborator reflects the democratic nature of the creative process the two have developed between them.
Opening with the eerie, semi-spoken Alice Etc, which sees processed beats and sparse instrumentation providing a hypnotic backdrop for Lee’s ever-beguiling poetry, the album expands further upon the trippy eclecticism of Electric Trim, whilst also offering a nod in the trip-hop experimentation of Kim Gordon’s recent solo outing. In contrast, the folk-infused beauty of Words Out Of The Haze sees Lee weave a gorgeous melody, over which Refree (in a manner reminiscent of Daniel Lanois’ collaboration with Neil Young), daubs various electronic elements and effects. It’s a stunning piece of music, which comes to a sudden halt, making way for the lo-fi New Brain Trajectory, a track that wouldn’t sound out of place on the latter-day Sonic Youth albums. Despite a light-touch start, there’s a darkness that emerges as wind-chime sound effects coalesce with dark, throbbing bass and piano stabs to create a more potent, cinematic backdrop for Lee’s overlapping vocals. That sense of darkness carries over into the subtly industrial Humps, which features wheezing synths and sampled snippets of speech, before emerging in a more contemplative frame of mind as Lee recounts a tale of loss and emptiness. Caught somewhere between the beauty of Beck’s Blackhole and the soundscaping of Abigail Mead circa Full Metal Jacket, Humps sounds quite unlike anything Lee’s created before, and it works astonishingly well.
Initially built around Sonic Youth-esque noise, the title track emerges as a piece of music that recalls Peter Gabriel’s ground-breaking world music experimentation, as Lee and Raul create a strong tribal rhythm that builds towards a chant of spiritual intensity. Another track that throws a spotlight on Lee’s poetry, Light Years Out opens as a spoken-word piece overlaid with scattershot electronica before morphing into a synth-led track that makes use of atypical sounds to further enhance the atmosphere of the piece. A minimalist piece, Light Years Out highlights Lee’s ability to do much with comparatively little, the depth of his lyrics and the absorbing manner of his delivery needing only the most skeletal of backdrops to make the transition from monologue to art. When it does morph into a full-blown song, it once again serves to recall Peter Gabriel, albeit in his post-punk guise (think This Is The Picture), and Refree’s deft engineering is a work of art in itself. It leaves plenty of space for the gentle, reflective The Art Of Losing, which is built around creaking noise and a heartbeat pulse that serves to mesmerise the listener. It’s a piece of poignant beauty and, if it’s a surprise to hear Lee’s vocals manipulated with heavy autotune, it’s very much about creating an effect in a manner reminiscent of Folk Implosion, rather than an attempt to process the recording into sterility. Nevertheless, the track carries a potent sting in its tail, suddenly devolving into nightmarish avant-jazz noise, wherein churning guitars and cut-up vocal snippets vie for attention, before the melody reasserts itself for a fragile coda. It leaves the Appalachian beauty of At The Forks to bring the album to a close in a manner reminiscent of Electric Trim. Although the ever-present hand of Raul is there to guide the piece into new sonic territory, it’s a lovely finale that leaves the listener somehow cleansed and refreshed.
Lee Ranaldo has excelled in his post-Sonic-Youth guise as a solo artist. Whilst the loss of the band is a heavy one, Lee has spent his time exploring musical areas into which Sonic Youth had only gently trespassed. Reaching a career peak with the unfeasibly lovely Electric Trim, rather than simply repeat that album’s myriad successes, Lee’s decision to collaborate more fully with Raul Referee has allowed for a record that treads the line between ambient and rock music; and Lee has taken to this expanded palette with aplomb. Music of great depth and feeling, Names Of North End Women is a slow-burning masterpiece and an easy candidate for album of the year. 10/10
