Lee Ranaldo is best known as one of the guitarists of the New York band Sonic Youth. This group has produced groundbreaking work in the field of experimental guitar music while in the rock-genre their approach to sound has set new frontiers. Sonic Youth experiment with sound, structures, unusual tunings and overtones. Their influence on alternative rock music can hardly be overestimated.

Having also performed in Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestra, Ranaldo is familiar with producing music on an epic scale and in an imaginative way. Considering the fact that Sonic Youth sidestepped into other musical directions and often collaborated on projects with film/video makers and contemporary visual artists, it seems natural that Lee Ranaldo should manifest himself as an autonomous artist outside the boundaries of rock music.

In his performance, Ranaldo’s electronically treated guitar sounds function as an organic framework for his prose. These spoken texts where the influence of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Raymond Carver slumbers, tell the story of a quest ‘on the road’, in which the volatility of impressions is related to memories. They are travelogues in time, impressions of people and places gliding by on their way to the fixed state of a photographic image.

In his performance, Lee Ranaldo collaborates with film and video-maker Leah Singer. The projections show blurred images, motels, streets and deserts, alternating with personal moments, underlining the themes of the prose.