Sonic Youth: Murray Street [BACK TO BLACK/DGC]

Why you'll love it

This Back to Black reissue is pressed in Germany. Murray Street scored 82 on Metacritic, a mark of universal acclaim, and Uncut said it held some of the best music the band had made since Daydream Nation.

This edition

• Back to Black series
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

The album takes its name from the band's Echo Canyon studio at 47 Murray Street in Tribeca, and it sounds like a band entirely at home. With Jim O'Rourke now on guitar and bass full-time, Sonic Youth had an extra pair of hands to weave into Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's tangled lines, and they used them beautifully. Recording began in August 2001, and by the time they played all seven songs at All Tomorrow's Parties in March 2002 the album was done.

"The Empty Page" is as melodic as anything they ever made, "Rain on Tin" builds into a long, glorious guitar storm, and Kim Gordon takes the mic for "Plastic Sun" and "Sympathy for the Strawberry." Steve Shelley keeps it all swinging, and Ranaldo's "Karen Revisited" drifts from a lovely pop song into a long, shimmering coda.

The girl on the right of the cover, picking strawberries with her friend Stella, is Thurston and Kim's daughter Coco. Twenty years into making a glorious racket, the band had learned exactly when to let a song breathe, which is more restraint than most of us show at a record sale.

Also at Kops: more Sonic Youth on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On DGC, a reissue of the 2002 album.