Sister (1987)

Sister is the fourth studio album by the American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on SST Records on June 1, 1987. The album represented a continuation of the band's evolution on their previous album EVOL, moving away from the no wave movement towards alternative rock song structures while maintaining an experimental approach. It was their first album with the lineup from the previous album intact, with Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, and Steve Shelley all returning.

The album, written while on tour and recorded in early 1987, is a loose concept album inspired by the life and works of writer Philip K. Dick.

Like Sonic Youth's previous albums, Sister was not commercially successful at the time of its release, but received critical acclaim. Retrospectively, several publications have named it as one of the best albums of the 1980s.

Background and recording

Sonic Youth released their third album, EVOL, in May 1986. While touring in support of the album, the band began writing new material ("White Kross" had been written earlier, circa May 1986). Sister was recorded to 16-track tape in March and April 1987 with house engineer Bill Titus at Walter Sear's Sear Sound studio in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, entirely on analog equipment. A Moog modular synthesizer at the studio was used on "Pipeline/Kill Time".

In addition, around this time the band collaborated with Mike Watt of Minutemen, recording and releasing a single and album as "Ciccone Youth".

Music and lyrics

Sister is a loose concept album (like its follow-up Daydream Nation), inspired in part by the life and works of American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Working titles for the album included Kitty Magic, Humpy Pumpy, and Sol-Fuc, but it was ultimately named Sister as a reference to Dick's fraternal twin, who died shortly after her birth and whose memory haunted Dick his entire life. "Sister" was also the original title of opening track "Schizophrenia"; Thurston Moore often introduced it as "Sister" in concert.

According to Sputnikmusic's Adam Downer, Sister deviated from the frenetic sound of Sonic Youth's previous music in favor of a refined style of noise pop that would typify the band's subsequent work. The album features aggressive noise rock songs such as "White Kross" and "Catholic Block", although it also featured more traditional alternative rock song structures. Some of the lyrics on "Schizophrenia" were originally written for early song "Come Around" ("Your future is static, It's already had it/But I got a hunch, it's coming back to me"). "Sister" was the original title for "Schizophrenia", and a live recording of the song from June 4, 1987 at The Town and Country Club in London was released on the B-side of a bootleg 7" single under that title. The A-side featured their cover of the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" with Iggy Pop. Both tracks from the single were later issued on the VHS portion of the 1995 compilation Screaming Fields of Sonic Love.

The band used acoustic guitars on some songs on the album for "melodic" purposes, including on "(I Got A) Catholic Block" and "Beauty Lies in the Eye", which used three or four guitars. "Pipeline/Kill Time", sung by Ranaldo, was written on April 5, 1987, although several lyrics were not included in the final song. "Tuff Gnarl"'s working titles were "Sea-Sik" and "Smart and Fast"; Watt covered the song on his album Ball-Hog or Tugboat? with Moore, Ranaldo, and Steve Shelley. "Hot Wire My Heart" is a cover of a song by Crime. "Kotton Krown" (or "Cotton Crown") was the band's first duet between Gordon and Moore, although Moore usually sang it alone during live performances. The closing track, "White Kross", was the oldest song on the album and was featured on an NME 7". On the band's 1987 European tour, they extended the song with an improvised coda which was later named "Broken Eye".

Packaging

The artwork of the original front cover contained a photograph of 12-year-old Sandra Bennett, taken by Richard Avedon on August 23, 1980 and used as the cover of his book In the American West, published in 1985. The photo was censored for later releases after a threat of a copyright lawsuit. At first the picture was merely covered up with a black sticker, but on later pressings the photo was totally removed, only showing a black area. Similarly, a photo of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World on the back cover was later obscured by a Universal Product Code. Very early promotional posters and pressings of the album did feature these photos, but later ones did not.

The band is called "The Sonic Youth" rather than "Sonic Youth" on the cover.