Lee Ranaldo and The Dust + Thurston Moore, The Garage

The dizzyingly prolific Sonic Youth are known for creating vast walls of weird (sometimes punishing) sound. But two years ago, the New York noise rockers went on hiatus. 

You’d be forgiven for thinking their guitarist Lee Ranaldo has gone a bit soft since then. He’s known for his avant-garde attitude to his instrument—in Sonic Youth, he and fellow guitarist Thurston Moore only ever played elaborately detuned electric guitars. But catch Ranaldo and his band The Dust at The Garage tonight and you’ll see something you never would’ve at a Sonic Youth gig: in-tune acoustic guitars—what Ranaldo calls ‘simple stringed things.’

Ranaldo’s solo work certainly reveals a softer side to a musician famously preoccupied with atonality and feedback. But he’s not Sonic Youth-lite; Ranaldo’s most recent album Last Night on Earth exhibits his technical virtuosity (Spin magazine ranked Ranaldo and Moore at number one on its 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time lists) and a growing knack for lyrics (Ranaldo has written several collections of poetry).

And with ten solo albums to his name, Lee Ranaldo is certainly a musical force unto himself. But, for the diehard Sonic Youth fans out there: count yourself lucky. With Thurston Moore supporting (and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley on percussion), tonights gig will almost feel like an SY reunion