Lethem

What made Bowie special? What made him the cultural icon he is today? And what made millions of people around the world tune into his peculiar wavelength and find exactly what they'd been looking for all along?

Electric Trim was recorded in New York City and Barcelona in collaboration with producer Raül 'Referee' Fernandez and extends the work of Renaldo's solo canon, the most recent being his 2013 album, Last Night On Earth. Through his collaboration with Fernandez, Renaldo moves into some rich new sonic territories and production techniques, experimenting with electronic beats and samples alongside live players Renaldo is a co-founder of Sonic Youth, a visual artist, producer and writer.

"Electric Trim" is the brand new studio album from founding member of Sonic Youth, Lee Ranaldo, his first on Mute. Nine new songs recorded in collaboration with Barcelona producer Raul ‘Refree’ Fernandez in New York City and Barcelona between April 2015 and April 2016, with help from many of the players associated with Lee's recent music, and some new friends: The Dust - Alan Licht, Steve Shelley & Tim Luntzel, plus Nels Cline, Kid Millions, and Sharon Van Etten, who sings on 6 songs, including a duet with Lee on ‘Last Looks,'. The lyrics for six of the songs on the record were written in collaboration with American author Jonathan Lethem. Cover art by Richard Prince. This album extends the work of Lee's previous two ‘song’ albums and moves into some rich new sonic territories and production techniques, experimenting with electronic beats and samples alongside the live players.

Though ignored at the time of its release, Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life is now recognized as one of the great American films of the 1950s. When a friendly, successful suburban teacher and father (James Mason, in one of his most indelible roles) is prescribed cortisone for a painful, possibly fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug, resulting in his transformation into a psychotic and ultimately violent household despot. This Eisenhower-era throat-grabber, shot in expressive CinemaScope, is an excoriating take on the nuclear family. That it came in the day of Father Knows Best makes it all the more shocking—and wildly entertaining.

Contemporary culture is haunted by its media. Yet in their ubiquity, digital media have become increasingly banal, making it harder for us to register their novelty or the scope of the social changes they have wrought. What do we learn about our media environment when we look closely at the ways novelists and filmmakers narrate and depict banal use of everyday technologies?