A few evenings ago, I found myself in one of those conversations that only happens when you've accumulated enough years. You know the kind – where time itself becomes the subject, and you marvel at how strangely it behaves as you age. We were discussing how compressed everything feels now. Events from decades ago sit right alongside last week's memories, all jumbled together in the same compressed mental storage.
I told them about something that had happened to me recently. I'd been listening to NYC Ghosts & Flowers, my favourite Sonic Youth record, when a memory washed over me – the exact feeling of sliding that CD into my player for the first time, twenty-five years ago.
Twenty-five years. More than half my life. But the memory felt as fresh as yesterday's breakfast.
Here's the thing about NYC Ghosts & Flowers: almost nobody lists it as their favourite Sonic Youth album. It's the awkward middle child in their discography. Not quite the alternative rock mega-hit of Goo or Washing Machine. Not quite the punishing experimentalism of their SYR releases.
It sits in this beautiful liminal space between pop and avant-garde, between accessibility and experimentation. It's a record that invites you in, then gently pushes you somewhere unexpected. For someone like me, who's always been drawn to art that straddles these boundaries, that's perfect.
There's a story behind the album's unique sound, and it's one of those beautiful accidents that sometimes produces great art. Just before recording, Sonic Youth had their van stolen – along with all their equipment. Years of carefully prepared guitars, modified amplifiers, the whole arsenal of sonic weaponry they'd built up over decades. Gone.
So they had to start fresh. New instruments. New sounds. A beginner's mind.
You can hear it in the record. There's something floating-like about it, something searching. It doesn't sound like any other Sonic Youth album. It's experimental and free, yet somehow warmer and more inviting than their usual controlled chaos. The songs float and drift, referencing beat poetry and New York's avant-garde heritage, but never losing their emotional core.
Jim O'Rourke's fingerprints are all over this album too. He wasn't yet officially a member – that would come with Murray Street – but as producer and contributor, he brought his signature warmth to the proceedings. That deep, enveloping sound that makes even the most experimental passages feel like a comfortable armchair.
When NYC Ghosts & Flowers came out in 2000, I was living in the city. It wasn't a happy time. I was profoundly miserable, actually – young and lost and not yet equipped with the tools to make sense of life. The one bright spot was the avant-garde music scene. Several nights a week, I'd drag myself to some cramped venue or loft space to watch impromptu concerts. Sometimes members of Sonic Youth would be there. Sometimes free jazz legends. Always transcendent.
This album felt like it was speaking directly to me. From the opening invitation of Free City Rhymes to the dreamy closer Lightnin', it captured something essential about New York's underground artistic spirit. The one thing I could appreciate about the city.
NYC Ghosts & Flowers might never top anyone else's Sonic Youth list. But for me, it remains essential – a reminder that sometimes the best art feels like it was made especially for you.
Even if it takes you twenty-five years to fully understand why.