Sonic Youth
★★★★
Walls Have Ears
GOOFIN’. CD/DL/LP
Long-lost semi-official bootleg from SY’s 1985 UK tours finally gets proper release.
Released without the band’s knowledge – and swiftly deleted after they discovered its existence – Walls Have Ears is more than just an elusive rarity within the Sonic Youth discography. Chronicling two shows from their first UK tours in 1985, Walls captures the group in a volcanic moment of transition, evolving from the artful nihilism of their Bad Moon Rising album to the bruising psychedelia of EVOL. So we get the blank-eyed mania of I’m Insane, two runs through the chilling Manson Family ecstasies of Death Valley 69, the ambient industrial of Ghost Bitch. We also get an embryonic Expressway To Yr Skull, its beatific drones reaching for enlightenment, and a primal raga reading of Green Light. Presented verité-style, dry banter and mangled Madonna tapes masking between-song retuning, Walls is an essential slice of art-punk history. It’s also a blistering good time.