Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation - CASSETTES

Eat Your Neighbors - You're Next [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/06/2011

Released in May 1986 on SST Records and Blast First! In the UK, EVOL was the third studio album by Sonic Youth and showed the first signs of the band transforming their No Wave past into a greater alt-rock sensibility. InchEVOL... mark[s] the true departure point of Sonic Youth's musical evolution,Inch noted Pitchfork, InchIn measured increments, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo... bring form to the formless, tune to the tuneless, and with the help of Steve Shelley's drums... , [impose] melody and composition on their trademark dissonance.Inch InchIf Daydream Nation is Sonic Youth's opus, EVOL was crucial research. There's a directness that makes everything feel close. It is pure tension with little . The entire record is a shadow.Inch Stereogum likewise praised the album as one, Inchfull of suspense... , the cornerstone [of] the Sonic Youth sound... , ground zero for the combination of chiming guitars and atonal skronk... muggy delirium... The virile 'Tom Violence' sounds less written than coaxed from a cauldron, the sort of song that fogs windows. The off-kilter 'Starpower'... is sung in a frosty [Nico-evoking] monotone [by Kim Gordon]. 'In The Kingdom #19,' featuring Mike Watt on bass and... vocals [by Ranaldo]... , is a harrowing story of a highway wreck over a suitably edgy instrumental backing punctuated by... live firecrackers in the vocal booth.Inch For Popstache, InchEVOL slithers into the unconscious. Once the... detuned melodies and haunting riffs and final whispers of feedback depart from the speakers... The music [leaves] a faded footprint, forever reeling the listener back for another strange trip.Inch InchThe seeds of greatness... Inch - Pitchfork (who placed the album #31 of the Top 100 Albums of The 1980s) InchA near-masterpiece.Inch - Trouser Press InchA stunningly fluent mixture of avant-garde instrumentation and subversions of rock'n'roll.Inch - All

Culled from three 1985 gigs in the UK during a transitional and transcendent time in the band's story, Sonic Youth's The Walls Have Ears appeared / disappeared as a 2LP set in 1986, not just a live album but an artful tapestry full of live experimentation with songs, between-song tape segues, darkness, humor and audio verité. It's now issued for the first time officially under the band's auspices.The '85 shows were the second time the band appeared on UK soil, Brits now getting juiced to the mythos of the emerging guitar-slinging American independent underground; an art / punk band from NYC sporting casual attitudes and tees sporting Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Prince made some good press copy on top of their bludgeoning stage appearance. Paul Smith of the newly-founded Blast First tag acted as an overseas diplomatic envoy for Sonic Youth through their SST years as well as issuing their classic 1988 Daydream Nation outside the USA. However the Smith-produced 'bootleg' of their '85 UK gigs surfaced much to everyone's surprise, just before EVOL was to be released. It turned out to be a marker of the group's dissatisfaction that ultimately led to the 's deletion, and the band and Smith parting ways after Daydream.InchIn this 2LP set brimming with primitive classics like 'The Burning Spear, Death Valley 69,' and 'I'm Insane' (uncredited on sleeve), segues and live guitar changes ooze together threaded by Madonna tapes and vocal loops off the board (somewhat a necessity for distraction until the band had a full fledged stage crew to prepare guitars). The first two sides of Walls are massive, cavernous, with newly-drafted drummer Steve Shelley. SY tear it up especially on one trash-fi excerpt of 'Blood On Brighton Beach' (actually 'Making The Nature Scene') from a legendary outdoor gig November 8th where [Thurston] Moore, [Kim] Gordon and [Lee] Ranaldo's guitars treble