Sonic Youth :: Murray Street
Photo: GIOTAS
I woke up this morning thinking about this album, as another anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11 comes full circle, as we surround the burning sun, whose enthusiasm for our species is surely in critical question after these past few years, right? If we leave out gluten-free cookies and oat milk in an ancient chalice for Santa this year, would this be an attempt to erase some of the horrors we’ve inflicted, like an Etch A Sketch on Christmas morning? Better make that whole milk, and don’t forget to turn off the oven. Sonic Youth’s “Murray Street,” the band’s twelfth studio album? Sixteenth? How about the first to feature the legendary Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke, who was asleep in the studio when the first plane hit the North tower. “Murray Street” swings like a poetic pendulum from radio-friendly fire to the hyper-extended reality jams that make this body of work a meditative milestone in the band’s lush career. While most probably prefer the electrifying essences of the band’s earlier works like “Evol,” “Sister", “Daydream Nation", and "Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star” “Murray Street” is the perfect time capsule that articulates both the perimeters of pop and the tonal textures of experimental expertise that ultimately gave the band the legendary trailblazing title they’ve carried for more than four decades. Recording for the album at the band’s harmonious headquarters, Echo Canyon, began in July and August, before the terrorist threats on the World Trade Center took place that following month, which not only froze production for the band but for the country as one of the most devastating disasters in American history shook the world to its crumbling core. “We really didn’t get to look at the studio until a few weeks later,” he says, noting that a 16-man decontamination crew had to be called in to restore the equipment to working order. Eventually, there was a certain desire to reclaim our workspace in the face of this neighborhood being destroyed. Our mood in approaching this record and actually executing it was certainly different than what it would have been prior,” said Moore, and while the band experienced several metamorphoses over the years, as well as social setbacks that required their epic energy to break through the cultural constructs of 1980s government politics, the September 11th attacks showed just how resilient the group truly were at the time.
“Murray Street is perhaps best seen as a product of cooperative game theory. Like all Sonic Youth albums, it is a result of individuals striving in a collectivist environment, for goals that are only understood once they are achieved. It is a brilliant evocation of the here and now, as well as the there and then. Its future unfolds like a petal-turned-tarpenny before us all.”
Photo: Hayley Madden/Redferns/Getty Images
Blending rudimentary rhythms with the sophisticated static from the group’s treasure trove of handmade tools, gadgets, and instruments of intensity, the album’s iconic interior began to walk on its own three legs before the rug was pulled out from under its technical toes. The second installment in the tonal trilogy that radically reflects the history of Lower Manhattan, following 2000’s “NYC Ghosts & Flowers,” Murray Street is not only the northern edge of Queen’s Farm, where King’s College once stood (1754), and the original location of Columbia College (1787), but where some of the pieces of the plane engines landed on the roof, and street of the studio that faintful fall day. Within a few months, the band returned to the devastating debris that was once their neighborhood to figure out what was next, and it was necessary both as artists and residents of their beloved city. While Moore had most of the material laid out from previous solo performances, the album was finished, and needed to be captured once and for all. By spring of 2002, the band was ready to show the world as much as they were ready to heal the world with what would become an entirely new generation’s favorite Sonic Youth record. Featuring seven splintering tracks and the recording/mixing/engineering magic of O’Rourke, “Murray Street” bends a liberating light onto the darkness, revealing the whispering wounds of a decade off to a rocky start, but with hope peaking out from any corner that lay ahead.
“This record and Sonic Nurse both stand out because of Jim’s contribution to the arrangements and the sound. They’re very special to me for that reason alone. Murray St. was like a shelter for us after 9/11. Our studio was behind the barricade, and we would have to cross over to get to it. For months, there were people streaming down there to see the cavernous hole in the ground. We’d go there and work on our songs. It was nice to have something to do that we felt good about.”
