Sonic Youth’s first outtakes collection, The Destroyed Room, is a rewarding listen considering the band didn’t think these ten songs worthy of a record. The enthusiastic bombast of the band’s ability to just stand still for five, ten minutes at a time still marvels. (Though I can envision my father, exasperated at the sometimes motionless drone, quoting me lines from Pink Floyd’s ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,’ which he heard eight years ago, never to be forgotten.)

The music in these assorted projects is textural to the point of bloatedness, like the thickest carpet you could ever curl up in. The guitars howl and churn and haunt every room that isn’t locked tight. The twenty-five minute closer, ‘The Diamond Sea,’ is relentless like an undertow intent on dragging you out to sea. This room is haunted.