Thurston Moore - Psychic Hearts: Classic or Dud?

I haven't listened to it in years, but I concur, the LP's etchings are really great. Here's some quickly shot pics of the etchings on side four (bonus points if you see me): 1, 2.

So, for the classic or dud portion, as a throw away one-off record, it's not terrible.

"The kids at school called you slut
And nothing but
But what the fuck
Are they into?
The stupid fools . . ."

Cool Beans! i totally remember that interview. her cover of "Psychic Hearts" was the first Cat Power record I ever bought, and for me has yet to be really surpassed by any of the others.

new tune from forthcoming solo record: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/22/134765406/world-premiere-thurston-moores-beautiful-benediction
Thurston goes straightforward singer-songwriter, sounds like.

huh I liked this album a lot; not favourite of the 90s but really good. love the title track and elegy. some dude otm

wow that new song is v v pretty btw

yeah, nice stuff. beck produced it, i guess?

He was just added to a bill with Mike Watt in Connecticut. Could be interesting.

http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/OLE-953-Thurston-Moore-Demolished-Thoughts.jpg
On Tuesday May 24*, Matador will be releasing ‘Demolished Thoughts’, the 4th solo album from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore (5th if you count 1998′s ‘Root’) and the first to be produced by Beck Hansen. Recorded in Los Angeles and Northampton, MA this past autumn & winter, with a title culled from The Faith’s “It’s Time”, ‘Demolished Thoughts’ is an equally beautiful and brooding work ; while there’s more than a few tonal similarities to some of your favorite Moore compositions from years past, the execution this time around is nothing short of staggering. No disrespect to 1995′s ‘Psychic Hearts’ or 2007′s ‘Trees Outside The Academy’ is intended on our part when we promise ‘Demolished Thoughts’ burnishes Thurston’s rep as a classic songwriter in ways we never anticipated when this album was first being talked about last year. In addition to Moore’s guitars and vocals, other players include violinist Samara Lubelski (she of prior Moore recordings and touring, her own solo works, Metal Mountains, Hall Of Fame, Tower Recordings, Metabolismus, etc.), harpist Mary Lattimore (also heard on Kurt Vile’s latest), bassist Bram Inscore, drummer Joey Waronker and Beck.

punk moon

He's ready for his car advert soundtrack. Maybe he can collaborate with Pomplamoose.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/images/ency/fullsize/8600.jpg

no i get it, this sounds kinda adult contempo. but still sounds good.

"Whether I'm driving Coco to her soccer game, or lugging 17 Fender Jaguars in just intonation to Citibabes for a private party, the Entourage is the Expressway To Where I Want To Be."

lol

Awful... yuck.

Pretty little tune. I doubt I'll listen to it again in a couple of weeks. Maybe the voice and lead guitar line (my least favourite part) are a little VU-ish but the main melody and harmonies don't remind me of them at all.

Ha, I haven't listened to Psychic Hearts in years. I don't think I have a copy anymore.

streaming now on npr. sounds cool to me, maybe a little weirder than "benediction" might've suggested.

what is with him and j mascis making boring acoustic albums now

friends support each other

Matador will be releasing ‘Demolished Thoughts’, the 4th solo album from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore (5th if you count 1998′s ‘Root’)

my pedantic fanboy brain is mildly confused by this, since it's only his 3rd 'song-based' solo album after Psychic Hearts and Trees (and so the 4th if you count Root, which i forgot about despite buying at the time in the lol vacuum cleaner bag special edition package). and i feel like if you count one improv noise release you gotta count all 50 of 'em.

i haven't heard the new album yet, but a pretty large amount of SY's albums since Murray Street have started with Thurston writing on acoustic, which is apparently just how he usually plays when at home just messing around now, and it's almost been intriguing to me to hear him w/o out an amp or effects so i welcome this stuff.

yeah i think it's a nice sound. though thurston's playing is by now so trademarked that in each song I think "hasn't he written this song before?" almost neil young-like.

there are some people who i think should feel free to make "music very much in character" until the day they drop dead. Thurston's one, Neil is another.

this album is so great.

Surprised by how much I like this, considering that I didn't care for the last two SY pop albums. I like hearing these harmonies on a clear acoustic guitar. The violin and harp add nice touches.

I'm really diggin' it. Very mellow, lots of Samara. "Orchard Street" is awesome - Sonic Youth tension with acoustic instruments. 2nd half > 1st half.

my pedantic fanboy brain is mildly confused by this

earlier this year he put out a great tribute to jack rose, nice and mellow and acoustic. that makes five

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/content/content.php?id=611

the vibe carries over into this new one

asking myself once again

why

the fuck

am i doing this

he's playing here in july, anyone know if he's touring solo or bringing a band?

my pedantic fanboy brain is mildly confused by this

earlier this year he put out a great tribute to jack rose, nice and mellow and acoustic. that makes five

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/content/content.php?id=611

the vibe carries over into this new one

― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, May 19, 2011 3:51 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh wow cool, don't know how i never even heard of that! cool, now i have 2 new Thurston records to check out.

I saw Thurston touring behind Trees and he had a backing band w/ a lot of the players from the album (and also playing Psychic Hearts tunes for the encore), I imagine he'll be doing something like that again

these two new albums go really well together. dude's making great music these days

Yes, there is a band.

thurston is playing here with dino jr. and rollins spoken word! sst nostalgia night! dino jr. doing BUG in its entirety.

apparently Henry is interviewing Dinosaur onstage at every show on this tour. that sounds like it could get pretty weird.

that sounds awesome (tho i don't think t gets too nostalgic abt sst anymore, check out the "rap damage" version of screaming skull)

xp you know what, j can be REAAAALLY lucid and interesting abt Dinosaur in interview, when he wants to be

back when trees came out in 2007, i picked up a copy and really liked it. i liked fri/end enough to seek out guitar tabs for it and learn a couple of the riffs, which i can still play. i hope i eventually end up hearing this one, but who knows -- i should at least check out the stream, i guess

beck's production is excellent

OTM

too much violin. not enuff pianissimo moments

live recording here - www.nyctaper.com/?p=6069
haven't listened yet, but nyctaper is always reliable.

I hate to say it, but this album seems kind of dull to me, compared to Trees Outside the Academy.

yeah i'm not really feeling it

find this infinitely more listenable/tuneful than trees.. maybe i should go back to trees

1. stream: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/interactive/2011/may/16/1
2. the opener benediction is the standout song. it's so unbelievably sweet, mellow and sensitive. more beck in songwriter mode (like on the phantastic mutations) than thurston.
3. on the album there are too many strings for my liking.
4. the whole thing sounds overproduced to my ears (cf. 3). the sound is too full, too orchestral. it reminds me of the other beck songwriter album, "sea change". not enough dynamics as someone already said upthread.
5. not sure if it is dull though, i feel that it needs more than just one listen to sink in.
6. i miss the rough, noisy edges. thurston's distorted, ringing electric guitar sound.

playing with sunburned hand of the man in london next week, apparently

it def does sound like Sea Change but Sea Change is great so that is good

The vinyl package is really nice; a big gatefold 2 LP set on blue vinyl with photo record sleeves, the CD booklet, and an MP3 download.

saw the live show for this record last week and it was okay, but what does it say that the psychic hearts encore was the highlight for me? thurston is a good songwriter and all but it's weird that he seems to intent on structuring things the same way after so many years, with that droning/clanging guitar noise section toward the final third of a song. every damn song. shrug. i haven't listened much to the record.

i dunno man asking Thurston to not write songs like that is like asking Eddie Van Halen to not rock a solo in every song

i know, i know.

lee ranaldo appears to be working on a solo record of some sort ... http://yfrog.com/hsf0lwcj
wonder if it'll be a song-y kind of thing? I'd almost be more interested in a singer songwriter ranaldo record than thurston's.

Listening to this I'm kind of struck once again by the idea that Thurston has very little talent but happened to be in the very, very right place at the very, very right time.

so wrong

I have heard that the Lee record will be his most straight/song-based to date.

o yeah? that might be cool. always wondered why he hadn't done that before.

new Thurston record is really fantastic & i wasn't expecting much

its my record-to-beat this year. and this year has been excellent so far.

What a pretty record.

i don't think of this as a very pretty record! a couple of the songs toward the end are kind of pretty, but mostly it's just a nasty sloppy two-guitars-and-no-bass record with dumber riffs than Thurston could get away with or permit himself to write with SY.

riffs do not have intellects, some dude.

Also, riffs on an acoustic guitar much different than electric, obviously. I think there is an obvious "effortlessness" to a lot of them, and that is probably by design. Obviously not gonna float everyone's Sonic boat. I find it pretty refreshing and well-done (and pretty). Found the harp and string arrangements to be pretty great as well. I am a sucker for this kinda thing though.

The string arrangements are mostly grand. Beck should stop recording his own work and concentrate on this stuff.

I do like the string arrangements on this a lot, but I feel like they are a little bit too suffocating at times.

On the weaker songs, definitely. It's never more than a good to very good record.

Are we taking about PH or the new one?

Oh, sorry, I was talking about the new one. Iirc, Beck didn't do any string arrangements on PH.

Yeah, I would agree with good to very good (only very good in spots). It has an air of not trying too hard to be very good, to me, which I am OK with. It sets a mood well and justifies it, which is a concrete enough reason to write some songs and put out a record for me, especially from a guy who has already provided me with a lot of highlights over the years.

xp: np jon; I think I was the only one who was confused here...

I like this

And yeah, I like Sea Change too

OK wait, I REALLY like this record

Awful... yuck.

― taco al pastorius (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, March 22, 2011 6:26 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark

Wait, I LOVE it actually

one of my favourites of the year, easily

i clearly thought we were talking about PH btw

i thought this was the thread where i made fun of his creative writing class

holy shit - then you are OTM then some dude, though i still love the shit out of 'elegy...'

http://youtu.be/ROCPIEUFRjg

new track sorta recalls psychic hearts.. sounds fresh, even

sounds cool.
might go see him tomorrow? maybe?

i saw him last winter, a great GREAT show even though he read his pomes in between songs ;)

really good jammage here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09b4z7TpU9s

i often think about how satisfying it would be to sing the title track at a karaoke night and how terrible it would be for everyone else

he's putting out this record by devon ross and she sounds like kim kinda! or coco doing an impression of kim. i looked her up and devon ross is also a fancy model and her dad played guitar with lenny kravitz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkG5DYRAniA

https://metalmagazine.eu/post/devon-ross

"he" being thurston.

#dirtyboots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrDHslT1u1A

Album’s a classic for sure (first few posts of this thread OTM). Didn’t realize it was reissued (on vinyl) in 2006, with an entire add’l album side of bonus tracks…