SONIC YOUTH レコード& CD

Review: Originally released as a bootleg live album in 1986, Walls Have Ears was a rare window into one of Sonic Youth's earliest UK tour appearances. Though notorious on the band's black market, the album has only recently been given the band's green light, who've now licensed it in agreement with Goofin' Records. Containing early versions of later Sonic Youth fixtures like 'Expressway To Ur Skull', this is a key record for any would-be aficionado; made up of recordings of one of their final shows with Bob Bert at London's Hammersmith Palais, this is a great addition to your music-historical arsenal.

Review: Culled from three 1985 gigs in the UK during a transitional and transcendent time in the band's story, Sonic Youth's Walls Have Ears appeared as a 2LP set in 1986, not just as a live album, but an artful tapestry full of live experimentation with songs, between-song tape segues, darkness, humour and audio verite on par with elements of side B of 'Master Dik' to come later. With a bit of complexity to the situation of the release itself. Deleted as quickly as it appeared, it's now issued for the first time officially under the band's auspices.

Review: Walls Have Ears first surfaced as a bootleg live album from an unknown source, cropping up in conjunction with a throng of incendiary live performances by Sonic Youth made between London and Brighton at the height of their fame. Though the original bootlegger's identity is unknown - Thurston Moore was livid at the fact, famously mumbling, "our creative control was put on the spot by this guy" - the album is tightly and expertly assembled, lending it enough credo to be reissued by Goofin this 2024. As Sonic Youth biographer Steve Chick wrote of the album, "unloved by its creators, Walls Have Ears proves that artists sometimes aren't the best judges of their own artistic output," and this is, nonetheless, a whoppingly firecracking sound.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Paradigm-shifters Sonic Youth, who formed way back in 1981, performed their final US show in August 2011 at the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn, New York. Thus rounding off a three-decade career - from their debut album Confusion Is Sex to their final album The Eternal - this live album exhibits the band's signature blend of noise, melody, and experimentation, as well as their energetic and passionate approach to live performance, all channelled through many a recognisable and rare live song. Mixed from multitrack by longtime live engineer Aaron Mullan and mastered and cut by Carl Saff, this nostalgic LP was first released in 2020 by Goofin' Records, and once more comes out on vinyl and CD via Silver Current.