Sister is the fourth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. It was released in June 1987 by SST Records. The album furthered the band's move away from the no wave genre towards more traditional song structures, while maintaining an aggressively experimental approach. Like Sonic Youth's previous records, Sister was not successful at the time of its release. In the years following, however, it received much critical praise, with several publications naming it as one of the best albums of the 1980s. Background and recording Sonic Youth released their third album, EVOL, in May 1986. During the tour of the album, the band began writing material for a new album ("White Kross" had been written earlier, circa May 1986). Sister was recorded to 16-track in March and April 1987 with Walter Sear at Sear Sound, entirely on analog tube equipment, giving it its characteristic "warm", vintage feel. Sister is a loose concept album (like its follow-up Daydream Nation). Sister was in part inspired by the life and works of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. The original titles for the album were Kitty Magic, Humpy Pumpy and Sol-Fuc, but it was 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 for "Schizophrenia", and Thurston Moore often introduced it as "Sister". Music and lyrics 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 songs such as "White Kross" and "Catholic Block", as well as a menacing noir ode, "Pacific Coast Highway", although it also featured more traditional 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 the title "Sister". The A-side featured their cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" with Iggy Pop. Both tracks from the single were later issued on the DVD portion of Screaming Fields of Sonic