Thurston Moore: Glow Critical Lucidity (digital outlets)

 |   |  1 min read

Hypnogram
Thurston Moore: Glow Critical Lucidity (digital outlets)

When Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth separated after more than 20 years of marriage, for the indie.kid generation it was as if their own parents had broken up.

Moore and Gordon seemed to have had it all: a life together making music and art, being creative, hanging out with the hippest of the hip and so on.

Well, infidelity rarely plays out well as Moore discovered, and Gordon's memoir Girl in a Band didn't pull many punches.

Moore's more recent memoir Sonic Life was sensibly much more circumspect.

Moore's albums used to gain considerable attention, but since that messy separation in 2011, his star has been tarnished.

And his enormously productive solo career – collaborations and albums under his own name – is quite shapeless.

There have been the expected firestorms of guitar noise (the 2013 free-form improvisations of “@” with John Zorn) but his first post-SY album was the quieter, Beck-produced Demolished Thoughts with synths, violin and harpist Mary Lattimore.

It's follow-up was the straight-ahead rock of The Best Day (2014) and Screen Time (2021) was inventive guitar pieces which were almost ambient.

This time he hits an interesting midpoint of his many style with an album of quirky moments (New in Town), delightful dream-pop (Hypnogram) and minimalist guitar figures morphing into cinematic pop (Sans Limites with Stereolab singer Laeitia Sadier providing a brief atmospheric dreamscape).

Perhaps his new life in a leafy part of London has lead to the hypnotic, psychedelic roll of Rewilding: “This terrain is changing . . . so I'm singing for animals”.

Behind the typically odd album title is Thurston Moore -- with lyrics by his new wife Eva Prinz - at his most approachable, the eight minute closer The Diver like a glistening, languid slo-mo take on Sonic Youth's The Diamond Sea.

.

You can hear this album at Spotify here


Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Hollie Smith and Mara TK: Band of Brothers Vol 1 (EMI)

Hollie Smith and Mara TK: Band of Brothers Vol 1 (EMI)

Although this collaboration with Mara TK of the electronica outfit Electric Wire Hustle will doubtless be read in some circles as a departure for Smith, most often known for her sky-scaling soul... > Read more

Sonny and the Sunsets: Hit After Hit (Unspk)

Sonny and the Sunsets: Hit After Hit (Unspk)

Here's a guess. This enjoyable but rather superficial pop outfit from San Francisco have in their collections albums of one-off Sixties pop by the likes of the Hombres (Let It All Hang Out), Sam... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

The Garifuna Women's Project: Umalali (Elite)

The Garifuna Women's Project: Umalali (Elite)

The sudden death in January of singer-songwriter Andy Palacio from Belize robbed the Garifuna movement of an important figurehead. His album Watina took the distinctive music of the coastal... > Read more

THE RETURN OF THE WORLD OF WEARABLE ART (2022): Handbags and glam rags

THE RETURN OF THE WORLD OF WEARABLE ART (2022): Handbags and glam rags

If you haven't seen one, it can't easily be explained to you. But here goes: the World of WearableArt (WOW) has the wow-factor as designers from here and overseas compete... > Read more