Sonic Youth have shared a live album on their Bandcamp, featuring a set recorded in Kyiv, Ukraine on April 14, 1989.
Following the release of ‘Daydream Nation’ in 1988, the band performed for the first time in Kyiv when it was still part of the USSR, with other dates in Vilnius, Leningrad and Moscow.
According to a statement on their Bandcamp, “This revisiting of the April 14 set honors that nation’s spirit…and timestamps a moment where new ears got transported for a first time.”
All proceeds from the live album will benefit World Central Kitchen, which has been providing meals in liberated Ukrainian cities.
One of the attendees of the gig was Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz, who said: “That SY Kyiv show was life changing for all musicians that were there… we were already attuned to Nick Cave, Einsturzende Neubauten, S Pistols and Discharge but these were the new vitamins we needed.
“I made a decision to experience NY right there. Plus my friends VV were opening so i got in free. The fact that it wasn’t shut down half way through like all other punk gigs was the doing of a Ukrainian man named Mikhailo Gorbachev, who set up the atmosphere of political “springtime” and a promise of change.”
SY have just released a live recording from Kyiv, Ukraine April 14, 1989 on @Bandcamp. Available at https://t.co/eTc4rXpRJm & https://t.co/jlOjmXke2K
This revisiting of the April 14 set honors that nation's spirit & proceeds will benefit @WCKitchen: https://t.co/FX6W6mHI6R pic.twitter.com/HtF6g5odXX
— Sonic Youth (@thesonicyouth) April 14, 2022
Sergey Popovich of Siggy Pop added: “In general, few people said how much the Sonics, with their arrival, promoted the entire soviets, and not just Kyiv. After all, in fact, perhaps, with that tour they hammered the final nail in the coffin of the soviets, and it was as if they let us in Kyiv breathe a mixture that was finally suitable for life.”
The live album includes the tracks ‘Candle’, ‘Kissability’, ‘Silver Rocket’ and more. You can buy it here.
Last month, Sonic Youth released ‘In/Out/In’, a compilation of rare tracks recorded throughout the 2000s.
The five-track effort bundles two songs recorded at the band’s old stomping grounds – the Echo Canyon studio in New York, which they operated before relocating to Hoboken – in 2000, one tracked during a soundcheck in 2010, and two home recordings minted in 2008.
Earlier this month, Pink Floyd released their first new music in decades to aid the relief effort in Ukraine.
The new track, titled ‘Hey, Hey, Rise Up’, features a sample of Andriy Khlyvnyuk, the singer of Ukrainian band Boombox, and is the band’s first original music to be released since their 1994 album ‘The Division Bell’. All proceeds from the song will go to Ukraine Humanitarian Relief.
Elsewhere, Julian Lennon, son of John Lennon, performed ‘Imagine’ for the first time to help raise money for Ukraine. The cover was done as part Stand Up For Ukraine campaign, a global fund-raising effort broadcast from Warsaw, Poland.
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