Thurston Moore - trees outside the academy - 2007

i like it

Yeah, I'm a bit wary of this but my current SY obsession demands I check it out. I felt the Psychic Hearts thing was unmemorable.

It's completely fantastic.

(and I'm generally more of a Lee fan)

That's good to hear, Johnny! So...what did you think of those El Momento Church albums? oops! Wrong thread...

3 tracks stand out here as the best one's:
"frozen gtr","shape in a a trance" and the best poppy-dirty style "fri emd".
on those songs Moore is at his best songwriting,and really most people i think would be satisfied with those tracks only.
the rest is neither the usual instrumental SY territory,or just mediocre songwriting with good guitars.
oh,and there also the random noise and bullshit tracks, like the last track where Thurston is 13, recording sounds of stuff in his house.

I just got done saying on an SY thread recently about how Thurston's kind of my least favorite member of SY for solo/side projects, and then I read the Pitchfork interview about this album and got totally hyped up for it. Acoustic Thurston with violins and Shelley on drums and the occasional J Mascis solo! That just sounds awesome on paper, I hope it's as good as I imagine it to be.

Psychic Hearts "unmemorable"???
negative. that album's great, even if it's tossed off. that's it's charm.
new one's pretty good, at first glance. i like the sound of Thurston acoustically driven. see, i like the man, so when he does 'real' songs (ie- not just noize), i'm on it. definitely dif'ernt.

have you guys actually heard the record?

Psychic Hearts kind of sucks except for the euology for all the dead rock stars.

how great is it that he's 65 years old and he's putting out shit that sounds like he's 13? (note: haven't heard the record and he's not 65, who cares?)

listened to psychic hearts today and 'cherry's blues' still does it for me. so does 'ono soul' and the track where he sings 'BLACK BEETLE' (sounds like 'dirty' outtake, can't remember name)

"have you guys actually heard the record?"

uh, which one? both? yes.

PE, yr on the wrong thread, bro. DMB's over dere.

Ooh. That was low, man.

Thurston will be 49 on July 25th, btw.

any of the violins of the john cale'ish screechin' variety?

"Ooh. That was low, man."

i know, i apologize. that was outta line.
i was drunk AND listening to the album.
i am Surly Duff's ace of spades.
meh. think it's pretty cool...

I think he should leave the acoustic bit to Flight Of The Conchords.

Thurston on Pitchfork's Guest List today:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/46175-guest-list-thurston-moore

One of the highlights:

J Mascis has the best ringtone, he just put his phone on top of his drum and hten he just like whacked the drum with a drumstick and he recorded it onto his phone, so when his phone, well...rings, it actually just goes, "BABABABABA!" . . .

this article was a lot of fun to read. i think it was mentioned somewhere else on an old SY thread, but someone said how they appreciated that moore & co. are not just musicians but are also a lot like some of us here on ILX - collectors, obscure culture enthusiasts, fans, etc. this guest list really demonstrates that to be true.

this past summer, i arrived in the bradley airport near hartford, CT, which is also the closest semi-major airport to northampton MA, where moore and gordon live. i swear i saw him at the airport -- tall, gangly, lanky dude with shaggy hair and an allen ginsberg "howl" t-shirt on. i was doubtful then because the guy looked a bit younger than someone moore's age (he's 50, right?), but the again moore looks pretty damn good for his age. i'm almost positive it was him now.

Yes, that's a funny list, especially compared to other Josh Homme-assholes who's been featured before.

Yeah, I like that Thurston is still a big geek who keeps up on all these obscure new bands, which is why it's so depressing to read the beginning of that article where he's all enthusiastic and clueless about the Clipse (thinks they're from Atlanta, doesn't know what year their last album came out).

Trees is a nice record but I need to go back to it and figure out how much I like it, haven't really felt compelled at all to listen to it since his D.C. show (which was fun, but tbh the best part was the encore when he played five songs from Psychic Hearts).

>> Best Thing I Did This Year

I really feel good about while I was recording Trees Outside the Academy, I was happy to get a pair of tweezers and pull this wood-tick off of Luisa, J Mascis' wife. J was on tour and she was pregnant and found this wood-tick on her. I pulled it off of her. I felt so glad to have been around to have done that.

sorta speaks for itself, doesn't it?

(Not sure if this merits its own thread, so I'll put it here...)

Has anyone picked up Thurston's new release on No Fun Recordings? Came out just recently, it's called Sensitive/Lethal and apparently it's two loooong instrumental/noise pieces. AMG likes it. I just ordered it. Anyone else?

Is it on youtube?

Hook me up with it. I love Thurston.

I totally would Bimbz... but my CD drive is dead. Gonna replace this goddamn 6-yrs-old laptop in a month or two. Remind me and I'll give it to ya then. (Site note: I've no idea if the CD's any good yet...)

I mean, I ordered it... but it's in the mail. :)

sounds good, Stephen. Not a prob

the reviews have not been lying about his new album

is that east london lifestyle agreeing with our thurston

what is his new album, and do the reviews say it is terrible or great

"Universal acclaim", apparently: https://www.metacritic.com/music/by-the-fire/thurston-moore

I liked some of the instrumental tracks he was cracking out under lockdown - bought "Strawberry Moon" and "The Lords and the Ladies", but was less excited by the vocal tracks. I generally like his solo work better than most people, though, so I'll definitely listen to this. Definitely a fan of Spirit Counsel.

Oh good, Wobbly is on this!

Listened this morning, not sure why everyone is so gah-gah over it, it is ok, but I guess I wasn't really blown away by it. I really don't like how his vocals sound, the instrumental bits are better.

I guess in general my reaction to all of his post Psychic Hearts "song" albums is how same-y & a bit dull they are.

It didn't make a strong impression on first listen.:(

i definitely have been enjoying it, mainly the longer instrumental sections. but i'm not sure if it's amazing.

Seems pretty good so far - it's hilarious to hear one of the ppl who destroyed the old models of guitar playing getting so Foghat on the last part of "Cantaloupe" but it works

vocals/lyrics aren't great - feel like the vox could be mixed a little lower

i don't keep up w/everything he does - does he have any recent solo stuff that is all-instrumental?

His last one! The three disc Spirit Counsel is entirely instrumental, three long pieces spread out over a disc each. I loved it.

cool that sounds like the ticket

The P'fork review was so well-written, I checked out this new album (despite having next to no interest in Moore). I agree w/chr1sb3singer that his vocals are really unpleasant for some reason. The album's sound is also kinda distorted, in a way I don't care for.

It didn't make a strong impression on first listen.:(

― The nexus of the crisis and the origin of storms (Sund4r), Friday, September 25, 2020 10:32 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

It gets better.

It does!

hilarious to hear one of the ppl who destroyed the old models of guitar playing getting so Foghat on the last part of "Cantaloupe" but it works

Can't say for sure wrt this album but, generally, all the melodic lead guitar stuff in this band comes from Sedwards and it does sound like his style.

Oddly enough Sedwards (at times) is one of the reasons I tune out of the solo Thurston stuff. I haven't heard this whole record yet, but the melodic solos/lines of some past stuff just weren't that interesting to me. He is a fine player, it "succeeds" at what it is doing, but it just didn't embed itself into the tunes particularly well for me.

Liking this album way more than I thought I would, pleasantly surprised. Vmic it's the longest songs (Breath, Siren and Venus in particular) I'm drawn to most.

would describe this album as pleasant but dull

Did you hear Spirit Counsel?

not yet

i made it all the way through this one - it had a nice ambience

does he have any recent solo stuff that is all-instrumental?

I've been listening to this quasi-ambient solo instrumental album he released on Feb 5: https://thurstonmoore1.bandcamp.com/album/screen-time-2 . I find a lot of it atmospheric and effective, although it's pretty simple compositionally. Not sure yet if it is worth 15 USD. "The home" is as good as anything he's done in this vein. I can't find much info on how it was made but it sounds like DI guitar with preparations on some tracks, most likely overdubbed and layered on some, unless there is some kind of real-time multitracking (or a second guitarist?? Don't think this is the case). At times, it reminded me of his score for Heavy - and he does say he conceived it as the score to an imaginary film noir where each track soundtracks a different scene.

Ums, I assume you know his VDSQ album?: https://vdsqrecords005.bandcamp.com

Screen Time is ok but that’s based on one listen

This is all instrumental and (imo) excellent, probably the best thing he’s done in 10-15 years

https://thurstonmoore1.bandcamp.com/album/spirit-counsel

In fairness the guy is putting out more music than I can keep up with

Yeah, Spirit Counsel is great. His new one from last year, By the Fire, is pretty good too, although I think I might have preferred most of it to be instrumental.

Agreed about By The Fire

Since, what, 2000 or so I’ve wished he would stop singing and go all instrumental

I don't mind his singing so much, I'm not a huge fan of the poet he's been working with on lyrics lately.

Spirit Counsel is awesome because he brought in secret ILX weapon.

Totally