Dept. of Because I Can

An appreciation of Sonic Youth's Murray Street. (Aquarium Drunkard)

Recorded in post 9/11 vérité, Murray Street once again found Jim O’Rourke manning the boards, but now also as a full-time member. Sonic Youth were now five. Something was in the air during those sessions; the world had changed, both psychologically and physically (literally, ground zero laid just beyond the studio door). Rooted in the collective consciousness of that time, Murray Street is an album that feels solid yet impermanent, a quiet, private dystopia that somehow says ‘welcome to the 21st century.’ And by that I don’t mean to infer it is a depressing record, yet merely an aware record. A fitting soundtrack to changing times, it is the sound of a new millennium. Listening to it now, spinning on my turntable, it still sounds like that tonight.