Devoted to the more open-ended rarities that have gathered in
Sonic Youth's discography in the decade spanning from
Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star to
Sonic Nurse,
The Destroyed Room serves as a reminder that even the band's sketches and non-album tracks remain fascinating. Pieces like the
Murray Street outtake "Fauhemians" and "Campfire," which originally appeared in the 1999 collection At Home with the Groovebox and sounds like static kisses, are great examples of
Sonic Youth's ability to make dissonant, weird, and otherwise unexpected sounds feel soothing (something they've done especially well in recent years). Likewise, "Fire Engine Dream," the ten-minute
Sonic Nurse-era jam that kicks off
The Destroyed Room, is pretty subtle despite its hypnotic fuzz; along with the shimmering sound collage "Loop Cat," it shows that the band's seemingly far-flung experiments are balanced with structure and restraint. Given that many of the tracks here ended up tucked away as bonus tracks on Japanese editions of albums, or on the cutting-room floor, it's understandable that an unfinished feel pervades
The Destroyed Room. This incompeleteness is by no means a bad thing, though, especially on the twangy, off-the-cuff
Experimental Jet Set snippet "Razor Blade" and the beautiful "Kim's Chords," an instrumental full of changing moods and
Sonic Youth's distinctive ebb and flow. There are also a few fleshed-out but hard to find songs here, chief among them "Blink," the band's contribution to the soundtrack to Pola X, Leos Carax's 1999 experimental film noir, and the (very) full, 25-minute long version of "The Diamond Sea," which emphasizes the avant jam band feel they've cultivated in later years. Just as this collection's name and artwork turn the rock cliché of trashing a room into a work of art,
The Destroyed Room is a creative -- and quintessentially
Sonic Youth -- approach to the rarities and B-sides comp. ~ Heather Phares