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Through the miracle that is YouTube, I heard most of this album (some songs weren't uploaded; I had to settle for a sample of Contre Le Sexisme from All Music Guide, a slightly truncated Hits of Sunshine cut down to 10 minutes, and a bootleg of Karen Koltrane) for the first time today. For some reason, both A Thousand Leaves and NYC Ghosts and Flowers managed to elude me in my "I must have every Sonic Youth album I can get my hands on" days in 2002-2004. All I can say is...
I need to hear it again.
Not so much because I thought it was completely mindblowing and must indulge myself in its audio bliss over and over, but more it's the first Sonic Youth album that I've been fairly ambivalent over whether I really liked it or not after the first listen. I mean, it's got some great atmospherics and some good songs, yet it kinda seems to drag at more than one point, Kim's vocals are a bit hard to take sometimes (and this is coming from someone who likes Panty Lies), and there's WAY too much use of phasing effects. It's like they felt the archetypical guitar sound for the album should be a cleanly phased Jazzmaster.
All that listed (ha), did the beginning verse of Heather Angel remind anyone else of Pink Floyd's Hey You?
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