Lee Ranaldo

Born in Glen Cove on Long Island, Lee Ranaldo first made his mark on the early 1980s New York scene — between no wave, experimental rock and work on guitar textures — after stints with Glenn Branca and Plus Instruments. In 1981 he co-founded Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, a band central to the development of an alternative rock that blended dissonance, oblique melody, noise and art rock. Alongside that collective trajectory, Ranaldo early on developed a personal practice more open to improvisation, spoken word and sound forms, with records such as From Here to Infinity (1987), Amarillo Ramp (For Robert Smithson) and Dirty Windows (1998). After Sonic Youth went on hiatus in 2011, Ranaldo refocused his solo discography toward a more song-led format with Between the Times and the Tides (2012), followed by Last Night on Earth (2013) with The Dust, Electric Trim (2017) made with Raül Refree, and Names of North End Women (2020). His career also includes Text of Light, collaborations with Leah Singer in performances combining image and sound, and a steady practice spanning music, poetry and visual art.