Sonic Youth will take their sixteenth album, Murray Street, out on a twenty-two-date tour, starting August 1st in Dallas. The tour will be the group’s second as a five-piece, as the group brought producer Jim O’Rourke onboard while promoting their last studio record, 2000’s NYC Ghosts and Flowers. The dates will run through a September 1st appearance at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle and include a free concert at Central Park in the band’s hometown of New York City.
The majority of Murray Street, which will be released on June 25th, was written last summer, and the band recorded the material at its New York studio this past winter. “We haven’t really played [the new songs] that much,” guitarist-singer Thurston Moore says, “only three or four times since we recorded them. They’re still a little rusty for us live, but we’re working on them, and we’re going to do a whole European tour before we come back to the States. So by the time we get back, we should be into it.”
Murray Street and the tour are just two of several Sonic Youth projects on the burner this year, the band’s twenty-first together. The band has scored music for a pair of upcoming films, and is also planning to release a collaboration with French chanteuse Brititte Fontaine later this year on its SYR label. This fall, Sonic Youth’s 1992 album Dirty will also be reissued with a bonus CD of rare material. The album will be the first in trio of reissues, with Daydream Nation and Goo to follow.
Sonic Youth Tour Dates:
- 8/1 – Dallas, TBA
- 8/2 – Austin, Stubbs
- 8/3 – New Orleans, Tipitina’s
- 8/5 – Atlanta, Variety Playhouse
- 8/6 – Athens, GA, 40 Watt Club
- 8/7 – Raleigh, NC, The Ritz
- 8/8 – Washington, DC, 9:30 Club
- 8/10 – Philadelphia, Trocadero
- 8/11 – New York, Central Park Summerstage
- 8/13 – Boston, The Roxy
- 8/14 – Montreal, Le Medley
- 8/15 – Toronto, Kool Haus
- 8/16 – Detroit, Royal Oak Theater
- 8/17 – Chicago, Metro
- 8/19 – Minneapolis, First Avenue
- 8/21 – Denver, Ogden Theater
- 8/23 – San Diego, Del Mar Fairgrounds
- 8/25 – Los Angeles, El Rey Theater
- 8/27 – San Francisco, Fillmore
- 8/30 – Portland, OR, Crystal Ballroom
- 8/31 – Vancouver, TBA
- 9/1 – Seattle, Bumbershoot