NYC Ghosts & Flowers

NYC Ghosts & Flowers is a 2000 album by Sonic Youth. The album was a slight departure, mainly as a creative reaction to the theft of their instruments in July 1999. Irreplaceable guitars and effects pedals with numerous modifications were stolen. It is also the first Sonic Youth album to extensively use prepared guitar since 1985's Bad Moon Rising, most notably on "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" (a file inserted over the neck pickup) and "Lightnin'" (a bike horn wedged under the strings). On this album the influence of beat poetry on the band is strongly evident: The lyrics to most songs resemble the beat style, Lenny Bruce and D. A. Levy are name-checked and the cover art is based on a painting by William S. Burroughs. The album...