SONIC YOUTH Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Walls Have Ears first surfaced as a bootleg live album from an unknown source, cropping up in conjunction with a throng of incendiary live performances by Sonic Youth made between London and Brighton at the height of their fame. Though the original bootlegger's identity is unknown - Thurston Moore was livid at the fact, famously mumbling, "our creative control was put on the spot by this guy" - the album is tightly and expertly assembled, lending it enough credo to be reissued by Goofin this 2024. As Sonic Youth biographer Steve Chick wrote of the album, "unloved by its creators, Walls Have Ears proves that artists sometimes aren't the best judges of their own artistic output," and this is, nonetheless, a whoppingly firecracking sound.