NYC Ghosts & Flowers is the eleventh studio album by the rock band Sonic Youth, released on May 16, 2000, through DGC Records. The highly experimental album is considered to be a reaction to the theft of the band’s instruments in July 1999, when several irreplaceable guitars and effects pedals were stolen. NYC Ghosts & Flowers was the first album since Bad Moon Rising in which the band used prepared guitar.
As a result of the theft, the members of Sonic Youth relied upon “old guitars in their studio, unearthing instruments they hadn’t used in years” which “along with equipment purchased to fulfill the remaining dates (of the tour), would serve as the foundation for six new songs written over the next month”, in addition to “Free City Rhymes” and “Renegade Princess“, which were written prior to the tour. The band members later acknowledged that “the gear theft was somewhat of a blessing, if also a rather unwelcome and unpleasant one, in that it truly forced them to ‘start over’ and approach creating music with brand new boundaries”.
A music video was released for the track “Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)”. According to the band’s official website, it was a proposed single that “never actually found its way into stores.”
Tracklist:
- Free City Rhymes
- Renegade Princess
- Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)
- Small Flowers Crack Concrete
- Side2Side
- StreamXSonik Subway
- NYC Ghosts & Flowers
- Lightnin’
Credits:
Sonic Youth
Thurston Moore: vocals, guitar, production
Kim Gordon: vocals, bass guitar, guitar, trumpet, sleeve illustration (Girl Drawing, 2000), production
Lee Ranaldo: vocals, guitars, synthesizer, production, sleeve photography (1998)
Steve Shelley: drums, percussion, production
Additional personnel
Jim O’Rourke: bass guitar, electronics (“Side2Side”), production, additional recording, additional mixing
William Winant: percussion (“Side2Side”)
Rafael Toral: Spacestatic guitar (“Renegade Princess”)
Technical
Wharton Tiers: recording
Greg Calbi: mastering
Frank Olinsky: sleeve art direction
Dan Graham: sleeve artwork (video still from Rock My Religion, 1980)
https://sonicyouth.bandcamp.com/track/nyc-ghosts-flowers-live-2
