Lee Ranaldo: The System (soundtrack, sea glass aqua vinyl) [SILVER CURRENT]

Why you'll love it

Lee Ranaldo's score for The System on sea glass aqua vinyl, fifteen pieces across two sides with etched runouts. The Sonic Youth guitarist recorded it between October 2024 and April 2025, and "Tajikistan (Nice To Meet You)" and "Instruments Of Violence" both got videos.

This edition

• Sea glass aqua vinyl
• Fifteen pieces across two sides
• Etched runouts

About the album

Lee Ranaldo spent three decades as one of the two guitarists who made Sonic Youth sound like nobody else, and his solo work has drifted happily between songs, drones and film music. The System is a full score, recorded and mixed between October 2024 and April 2025, and it moves the way a good soundtrack should: tense guitar textures for "Berlin Blockade" and "The Conference", the bright cimbalom of "Pippi Sailing", and longer, glowing pieces like "The Cusp Of The Change".

"Bergelmir" returns from his 2019 album with Raül Refree, and the record closes on "Cool Water", the 1936 western song, which is not where you'd expect a Sonic Youth guitarist to end up. Score albums can be hard work without the pictures; this one paints its own.

Tracklist

Listen

Out October 2, 2026 on Silver Current (cat# SC65LPX).