New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ UMe) For more than a quarter century,
Sonic Youth � featuring Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve
Shelley � were the acclaimed leaders of the New York underground as the dominant post-punk experimental noise band of its era, releasing 15 full-length albums, from 1983's Confusion Is Sex to 2009's The Eternal. UMe has started reissuing the entire nine-album DGC/Geffen catalog � which ranges from 1990's Goo to 2006's Rather Ripped � remastered from the original stereo analog master tapes on both high-grade vinyl and a variety of HD audio formats (including 192kHz 24-bit, 96kHz 24-bit and Mastered for iTunes). All vinyl album releases will include a digital download card for 320kbps MP4 AAC audio.
Following the February 26 releases of Goo (1990), Dirty (1992), Washing Machine (1995) and the 12" single of "The Diamond Sea," UMe will offer the next batch of
Sonic Youth albums, including Murray Street (2002), a double-vinyl LP edition of Sonic Nurse (2004) and Rather Ripped (2006) on July 15.
All titles will be made available through all participating online stores and retail outlets, as well as Sonic Youth's official website.
Murray Street was the 12th studio album by the band and the first to feature Jim O'Rourke as an official fifth member. The new material was praised as a return to the style of distorted and complex instrumentation. Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Sonic Youth find a balance - between formlessness and structure, melody and cacophony - that's eluded them for a while." The album peaked at No. 126 on Billboard, but Pitchfork placed it No. 108 on its list of the 200 greatest albums of the 2000s.
Sonic Nurse, the band's 13th studio album, will be released as a double-vinyl LP set, its cover art designed by renowned artist Richard
Prince from his Nurse Paintings series, which includes "Dude Ranch Nurse," a song on the album. Another track, "Pattern Recognition," was based on the 2003
William Gibson cyber-punk novel of the same name. The Village Voice's Robert Christgau praised the album, "This unusually songful set is well up among their late good ones, its dissonances a lingua franca deployed less atmospherically than has been their recent practice," adding in a Blender review, "by most standards, their best since 1988's pivotal Daydream Nation." The album peaked at No. 64 on the Billboard 200.
Rather Ripped was the band's 14th studio effort and the return of the original four-member band line-up. Produced by John Agnello, Rather Ripped is considered one of the band's more accessible albums, peaking at No. 71 on the Billboard 200. The single "Incinerate" was accompanied by a music video by French director/writer Claire Denis. The album was ranked No. 12 on the Village Voice's 2006 Pazz & Jop critics poll, with Rolling Stone citing Moore's guitar playing as giving the collection "a sense of emotional urgency."
A double-LP of A Thousand Leaves (1998) along with single-LP editions of Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994) and NYC
Ghosts & Flowers (2000) will arrive later in 2016 to complete the program, with release dates to be announced at a future time.
