Sonic Youth - A Thousand Leaves

Double LP set newly remastered from the original stereo analog master tapes

Universal Music Enterprises' year-long initiative to reissue on vinyl the pioneering art-punk band's entire nine-album DGC/Geffen catalog concludes with the October 2016 release of Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994), A Thousand Leaves (1998) and NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000).

Like their predecessors, these albums have been remastered from the original stereo analog master tapes and will be available on both high-grade "back to black" vinyl complete with a digital download card for 320kbps MP4 AAC audio as well as in a variety of HD audio formats.

A Thousand Leaves was Sonic Youth's 10th studio album and the group's first major effort to be recorded at their own Echo Canyon studio in NYC. Free from the constraints of paying for costly studio time, the band was able to work at their desired pace and experiment at will. The result was an album born out of improvisation, chiefly characterized by the guitar interplay between guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo. The album title was inspired by Walt Whitman as Moore explained, "The same way he improvises with images and words, we improvise with sounds and notes."

Pitchfork praised the epic "Hits of Sunshine (for Allen Ginsberg)" as its centerpiece while the Village Voice's Robert Christgau remained one of the band's strongest supporters, calling the album "the music of daydream nation old enough to treasure whatever time it finds on its hands... They wander at will, dazzled by sunshine, greenery, hoarfrost and machines that go squish in the night," placing it at No. 3 in his year-end Pazz & Jop "Dean's List," and later naming it one of the 10 best records of the 1990s.

Side 1

Contre le sexisme

Sunday

Female Mechanic Now on Duty

Side 2

Wildflower Soul

Hoarfrost

French Tickler

Side 3

Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)

Karen Koltrane

Side 4

The Ineffable Me

Snare, Girl

Heather Angel AISL 97801

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