JIM O'ROURKE Vinyl & CDs

Review: To call Invito Al Cielo an experimental album kind of undersells just how experimental it is. It also suggests, to the uninitiated, that there's an album here in some shape or form. Of course, the definition of an album is open to some debate - does it need to have a certain number of songs on there? Or is it more about overall run time? Here we have two tracks running upwards of 20minutes (one touching on 30) and a bridge movement at a still-pretty-long six minutes, so take from that what you will. What's really important, though, is the contents. Sonic Youth had already established themselves among the loudest in rock 'n' roll, but also the most adventurous and explorative musically speaking. This outing marked the third in a series of releases on their own SYR imprint, a platform used to push the envelope even further. Masters at noise and walls of sound, much of what's here is proof of just how far you can take drone and refrain with subtle differentiations.