Sonic Youth - Walls Have Ears 2LP

This reissue came out a few months ago and I’ve been struggling to put into words the sprawling reach of this set. Originally a bootleg that captures Sonic Youth in the UK in the mid-80s there are moments here where they really take off as a group.

Reading Greil Marcus’ Real Life Rock columns the other day I stumbled across him capturing it better than I ever could, so in the words of Marcus….

“It meanders over a blurred terrain until flair ups cause the music to contract past its surface of cryptic eschatology down to its unstable core; loathing, fatuity, confusion, smugness, play/ The goal seems to be to turn amusement into dread, to sustain dread long enough to turn it into a threat, which can be shaped into a song, which can be destroyed.”

-Mitch (cribbing Greil Marcus’ Real Life Rock column 15 April 1986)