January 8, 2006

Sonic Youth has begun recording its next Geffen studio album at Sear Sound Studio in New York, where the group put such prior albums as “Sister” and “Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” to tape.

According to the band’s official Web site, among the tunes recorded so far are “Pink Steam,” “Do You Believe in Rapture?,” “Or” and “Sleepin Around.” The as-yet-untitled album is due for release sometime this year.

As previously reported, Sonic Youth is recording without the aid of multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke, who had been part of the band on stage and in the studio since 2002’s “Murray Street.”

“Some of it seems to be an extension of the last couple of records, but some hearkens forward into territory and also back to earlier, more dissonant and atonal stuff we’ve done,” guitarist Lee Ranaldo told Billboard.com in October of the new material. “There’s definitely some rocking songs and also some sound piece-y kind of things that are pretty interesting as well.”

Also in the Sonic Youth pipeline for the first part of the year are reissues of the band’s 1982 self-titled EP, the peculiar 1988

Atlanta’s 12-year-old outdoor festival Music Midtown won’t be held this year, concert promoter Peter Conlon said January 5.

Conlon said it was too expensive to hold the three-day event at its current location – a tract near the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center, where the festival was moved from Piedmont Park.

Other sites in and outside Atlanta are under consideration, Conlon said, adding the new site will need to have adequate green space, size and public transportation accessibility.

The first festival was held in 1994 and attracted as many as 300,000 people over a spring weekend with national acts like Bob Dylan and Ashlee Simpson.

“We’re crying guitar-sized tears,” said Greg Pridgeon, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s chief of staff. “It’s become an institution in Atlanta. There’s a hole left by its absence. But we respect and understand the business decision that led to the cancellation. We’re not opposed to working with the festival in the future.”

Source pollstar.com.