Sonic Youth Refines Chaos on Walls Have Ears

Sonic Youth’s first performance in London can only be described as a “semi-disaster,” as Kim Gordon put it in her memoir. She recalls how the 1983 show was marred by technical difficulties including a snapped bass string and malfunctioning equipment. Thurston Moore even flung his guitar at the club’s audience out of frustration with the experience.

But people loved it. While some regarded the group as pretentious, the show was praised by many viewers and critics alike. It solidified a ringing authenticity that the band would continue to carry throughout their experimentation and performances. Sonic Youth feels like a band born from chaos and destined to perfect it and, on Walls Have Ears, we hear a fledgling version of the band begin to hone this chaos in an unrestrained live setting—as they perform throughout England only two years after their ill-fated London debut.

When listening to the official release of Walls Have Ears, the dramatic irony of Sonic Youth’s eventual fate looms over the live album. The band had yet to achieve the current level of international acclaim and recognition that would come after the release of Daydream Nation in 1988. In their early days, the members of Sonic Youth were molded by the muck and mire of the early ‘80s New York no-wave scene resulting in their bold, relentless sound that appealed to live audiences. The band embraced the no-wave ethos of valuing the unbridled over the organized, heavily influencing the raucous live sets heard on Walls Have Ears.

Walls Have Ears was initially released without the band’s consent, existing in a limbo state of quasi-officiality for 38 years before finally receiving a band-approved release in 2024. The recordings featured on the live album are taken from three separate 1985 shows in London and Brighton. Segues and transitions imbued with Madonna tapes and vocal loops glue the tracks together throughout the live performances, creating an eccentric cohesion.

The first seven tracks are from an October performance in London featuring guitarist Lee Ranaldo and newfound drummer Steve Shelley, with vocalists Gordon and Moore on bass and guitar. Atonal warmup chords hover in the background of Sonic Youth’s introduction, as MC and punk icon Claude Bessy implores the rowdy audience members to “shut your fucking face.” Opening with “Green Love,” Ranaldo and Moore hammer into prickling guitar passages. Jumpy and accented, the cacophony of noise punches straight into your gut. Sonic Youth’s live sound always existed within a feeling of visceral physicality that pierced through this set.

The performance of “Brother James” warps inharmonious chords into bent waves of sound. Thundering percussion and bass shake the venue in “I Love Her (All The Time)” as Moore’s droning vocals waft through the compact instrumentation. The band contorts and twists its instrumentation in transient flashes, going from calculated measures of sparse quiet to striking the venue with waves of ceaseless noise at a moment’s notice. “Blood On Brighton Beach” is the only track recorded from the November 1985 show in Brighton. Gravely instrumentals crunched together beneath Moore’s defiant shouts as the band unceremoniously tumbled into its ending while Gordon thanked the audience.

The double LP ends with recordings from April 1985, when the band opened for Nick Cave at Hammersmith Palais in London. Notably, this show is marked as one of drummer Bob Bert’s final performances with Sonic Youth. “Death Valley ‘69” builds upon a riff of loose, bare guitar notes that breaks the band into a pounding instrumental sprint. The rugged textures of each performance jolt and writhe, hanging thickly in the air of the venue. Gordon commands the space with her guttural vocal performance on “Ghost Bitch” as she yells “Locking arms side by side / Couch down before fire’s light / You’re the first day of my life!” The band even joked about comparisons made between Sonic Youth and the Jesus and Mary Chain on stage, playing the taped “Speed JAMC” which features a sped-up version of “You Trip Me Up.” Sonic Youth’s dry onstage humor only enhances the dark qualities of their no-wave-inspired shows.

Walls Have Ears is a staggering portrait of a once-in-a-generation band’s formative performances. The double LP acts as an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of sensations, distending into long, multi-textured passages of tension and release. Each performance is lucid and brutal, rattling audiences with its unstoppable fervor. Sometimes it’s hard to envision this adolescent version of Sonic Youth while knowing what’s to come for them, but it makes for an all the more enthralling listen as we imagine how it must have felt to be on the precipice of greatness.