A Thousand Leaves is the tenth studio album by American rock band Sonic Youth, released on CD and cassette on May 12, 1998, by DGC Records.

Since the band had an unlimited amount of time to work in their studio, the album features numerous lengthy and improvisational tracks that were developed unevenly.

It received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised the lengthy, quiet guitar interplay between band members Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo.

A Thousand Leaves is the follow-up to Sonic Youth's 1995 album Washing Machine, which was released shortly after the band concluded their stint headlining the 1995 Lollapalooza music festival.

[1] With the money they had made at the festival, the band decided to build a recording studio, called Echo Canyon, on Murray Street in Lower Manhattan.

[1][2] The span of nearly three years between Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves also represented the longest gap between studio albums in Sonic Youth's career at the time.

"[1] The 11-minute song "Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)" was initially intended to be released on one of the EPs as an instrumental track, but it was ultimately included on the album with vocals.

[5] Musically, A Thousand Leaves was considered more expansive and relaxed than previous Sonic Youth albums, with less feedback and more guitar playing and improvisation.

[4] Originally, the album was titled Mille Feuille (French for A Thousand Leaves) and was intended to feature an image of Moore holding a pastry as the cover art.

[32] Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine described the album as "the band's most challenging and satisfying record in years" and praised its quiet guitars and unpredictable twists, which kept the lengthy songs captivating.

[28] David Stubbs of Spin criticized Gordon's weak singing and forced guitar playing on "Contre le sexisme", "Female Mechanic Now on Duty", and "The Ineffable Me", but nevertheless judged the "continually inventive fretboard effects" of Moore and Ranaldo, which "[sparkle] gold-plating adornments that cut open and irritate [the album] at every turn.

Sara Scribner from the Los Angeles Times said that A Thousand Leaves was a monotonous "experimental, psychedelic record" that felt "like a passionless, less thoughtful shadow of [the band's] former self".

Club felt that the album rarely contained fully formed songs and that the band should start "completing its ideas before recording them for posterity.

[34] In a very positive review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau called A Thousand Leaves a mature and beautiful record, commenting: "It's the music of a daydream nation old enough to treasure whatever time it finds on its hands.

Where a decade ago [Sonic Youth] plunged and plodded, drunk on the forward notion of the van they were stuck in, here they wander at will, dazzled by sunshine, greenery, hoarfrost and machines that go squish in the night.