Join hosts Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley for a free listening party to celebrate Walls Have Ears. Including an advance listen to the full album and chat with the artists about Sonic Youth and this legendary live release.
Streaming + Download
Pre-order of Walls Have Ears. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Purchasable with gift card
releases February 9, 2024
$15USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
2XLP on heavy weight classic black vinyl with gatefold jacket. Ships in a protective mailer.
Includes digital pre-order of Walls Have Ears.
You get 1 track now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around February 9, 2024
Purchasable with gift card
$29USDor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Walls Have Ears on compact disc. Ships first class in a protective mailer.
Includes digital pre-order of Walls Have Ears.
You get 1 track now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around February 9, 2024
Purchasable with gift card
$15USDor more
Cassette + Digital Album
Walls Have Ears on limited edition orange cassette. Edition of 500. Ships first class in a protective mailer.
Includes digital pre-order of Walls Have Ears.
You get 1 track now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around February 9, 2024
Purchasable with gift card
$15USDor more
Deluxe Vinyl Edition w/ Orange and Black Swirl 2xLP plus Flexi 7", Poster, Digital EP and Postcard Set
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Deluxe edition package includes:
—2xLP on heavy weight orange marmalade and black swirl vinyl with alternate glow in the dark jacket art in hand-assembled Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket.
—4 postcard set (double sided) featuring performance images from the original shows by Jeff Stonehouse, housed in a hand stamped glassine envelope.
—7” Flexi disk featuring a previously unreleased performance of “(She's In A) Bad Mood”- Live At Bay 63, November 9, 1985, Ladbroke Grove UK. The only known performance of ‘“(She's In A) Bad Mood” since the Confusion tour (and the only version with Steve Shelley on drums.)
—The “Flexi E.P.” A three song digital e.p. that comes as a download card exclusively with the deluxe edition set. Featuring the digital version of “(She's In A) Bad Mood” from the 7” flexi as well as “I Love Her All The Time” from Hammersmith Palais April 28, 1985 London UK and the previously unreleased “Brave Men Run (In My Family)” from Bay 63 November 9, 1985, Ladbroke Grove, UK.
— 31”x 20” full color version of Savage Pencil’s iconic 1985 ‘Blood on Brighton Beach’ concert poster, colorized and prepared by Savage Pencil exclusively for this release.
All items included are exclusive to the deluxe edition set. Limited edition of 500 sets. Ships in a protective mailer.
Includes digital pre-order of Walls Have Ears.
You get 1 track now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
...more
Sold Out
Green "UFO" Colored Vinyl Edition 2xLP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
2XLP on heavy weight neon green vinyl with gatefold jacket. Limited edition of 900 copies.
Includes digital pre-order of Walls Have Ears.
You get 1 track now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
Culled from three 1985 gigs in the UK during a transitional and transcendent time in the band’s story, Sonic Youth’s ‘Walls Have Ears’ appeared 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 on par with elements of side B of ‘Master Dik’ to come later. With a bit of complexity to the situation of the release itself. Deleted as quickly as it appeared, 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 British soil, picking up on a newfound high profile in the press after their 1983 London debut supporting SPK and Danielle Dax. That particular gig, while admittedly a technically-challenged, volumatically room-clearing one for the band, nonetheless wowed music scribes in attendance. This anarchic set cast the New Yorkers in a bit of an exotic light, 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 copy on top of their bludgeoning stage appearance. For Brits, Sonic Youth repped an all new avenue apart from the usual 4AD/Rough Trade/Some Bizarre hold on the scene, and were embraced. After a mostly dormant 1984, the band then established a new evolution within themselves via ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and found a home stateside on Homestead. In Britain, SY found its keyhole to the all-encompassing (even on an indie standpoint) music biz via Paul Smith, who was wowed by a cassette passed to him by Lydia Lunch. A promoter and label liaison who had forged many connections locally working for the likes of EMI and Cabaret Voltaire’s Doublevision label, Smith ultimately founded his own imprint Blast First to take on ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and evangelized the band with P.T. Barnum-esque gusto, eventually acting as a strong portal for UK footing for others of the American underground (Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Dinosaur Jr.). Blast First continued to act as an overseas diplomatic envoy for Sonic Youth through their SST years as well as issuing their classic 1988 Daydream Nation outside the USA. But true to Barnum, Smith’s injection into the band’s creative sphere as a sort of de facto manager type was somewhat in guerilla mode, and the Smith-produced ‘bootleg’ of their ’85 UK gigs surfaced much to everyone’s surprise, just before EVOL, their SST debut, was to be released. It turned out to be a marker of the group’s dissatisfaction that ultimately led to the band and Smith parting ways after Daydream.
In this 2LP set brimming with primitive classics like “The Burning Spear”, “I Love Her All The Time”, “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). Claude Bessy (French punk raconteur who moved to LA for a period to cofound Slash Magazine and notoriously appeared in the Penelope Spheeris ‘Decline of Western Civilization’ documentary) humorously MC’s their intro to a October 30th ULU London gig with a lob at the indie label zeitgeist: vocally detailing how Rough Trade had come down on distributing the “Flower” 12” for sporting a xeroxed, nude female on the cover. The message was that music was reality, not manufactured subcultures, and Sonic Youth was there to present Britain with a healthy dose of it. The first two sides of ‘Walls’ are massive, cavernous, with newly-drafted drummer Steve Shelley in tow taking on past tunes and unveiling “Expressway To Yr Skull” in glorious form. They 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 Moore, Gordon and Ranaldo’s guitars treble-blast dissonant shockwaves over the black-stoned beach of Quadrophenia fame.
The record’s second slab spotlights an April 1985 pre-Shelley gig supporting Nick Cave at London’s Hammersmith Palais and was one of the final appearances live of Bob Bert, again featuring some molten takes on “Brother James”, “Kill Yr Idols”, “Flower” (Iisted as “The Word (E.V.O.L.)”), “Ghost Bitch” and others. The emergence of the Jesus and Mary Chain in the world gave Brit scribes a lazy and easy parallel, addressed here with a wink with the inclusion of “Speed JAMC”, another offstage tape interlude playfully scrolling through one of that band’s songs at fast-forward. In six more years the continual evolution of Sonic Youth would find them darlings of The Reading Festival, on tour with Nirvana in tow and continuing to smash down walls, but this document remains an essential representation of some lean and mean years of the quartet’s throttling march out into the world.
Brian Turner
credits
releases February 9, 2024
Kim Gordon - bass, vocals, guitar
Thurston Moore - guitar, vocals, bass
Lee Ranaldo - guitar, vocals
Steve Shelley - drums - 1st disk
Bob Bert - drums - 2nd disk
With Claude Bessey (presenter - track 1)
2024 Edition Mastered by Carl Saff
Originally compiled and released unofficially by Paul Smith (not on label) 1986
Packaging artwork includes but not limited to: photos by A.J. Barratt, graphics by Bruce Rhodes and illustrations by Savage Pencil
Layout and visual restoration by Darryl Norsen
Inner gatefold band photo by A. J. Barratt
Deluxe Edition:
Concept and components by Steve Shelley and Ethan Miller
Design and layout by Darryl Norsen
Postcard photos by Jeff Stonehouse
Poster colorization and original artwork by Savage Pencil
Flexi mastering by Tim Green
Digital Flexi EP mastering by Carl Saff and Tim Green
Thanks to Al Harwood, John Loughney, Chris Lawrence, Brian Turner, Nathan Walker, Tim Daly and Ethan Miller.
supported by 284 fans who also own “Walls Have Ears”
Sonic Youth is one of those bands where you easily run out of superlatives to describe what they created. This could've easily come off as a cynical cash-grab by a band that had broken up 11 years prior to the release of this record, but that's not what this is. Some of my favourite Sonic Youth instrumentals. sentient meat
supported by 124 fans who also own “Walls Have Ears”
Me and my friend used to go on drives all the time, and a lot of the time i asked what he was playing, and a majority of the songs were from Yo La Tengo. And since i went and listened to And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out i was fan. Never thought i’d buy one of their records for myself. violetstain
Hailing from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Bigu, Joab and John offer up slow-burning, fuzzy, and completely addictive riffs. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 11, 2016
