Sonic Youth: Washing Machine (2LP) [GEFFEN RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 2LP set on 180g vinyl comes in a gatefold jacket with photo inserts and a download code. It landed at No. 18 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll for 1995 and holds the longest song on any Sonic Youth studio album.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket
• Photo inserts
• Download card included

About the album

After Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, Sonic Youth came off the road and scattered into side projects: Kim Gordon's Free Kitten, Steve Shelley's Mosquito, Lee Ranaldo's free jazz detours with William Hooker and Thurston Moore's first solo album, Psychic Hearts. Moore and Gordon also welcomed their daughter Coco. When the band regrouped, they headed to Easley Studios in Memphis, where Pavement and Guided by Voices had worked, and far from the people who usually followed them around.

Moore said the sessions worked like the Sister days, writing a batch of songs, recording them in a month and letting them mutate on tour. Produced by the band with John Siket, the album stretches out. "Becuz" and the title track lock into long, winding guitar grooves, Gordon's "Little Trouble Girl" brings in Kim Deal on vocals, "Junkie's Promise" and "Saucer-Like" bristle, and "The Diamond Sea" sends Moore's and Ranaldo's guitars rising and falling like weather for most of Side D. A hidden "Becuz Coda" sneaks onto Side C.

They'd just headlined Lollapalooza when the album arrived, and Gordon later named it one of her favourites and her best time in a studio. Moore once said that if he really ran the band, every song would be 20 minutes long. On the evidence of Side D, the others let him have one.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On DGC / Geffen, a reissue of the 1995 album.