Thurston - Trees Outside The Academy

Estactic Peace

Thurston Moore’s 1995 outing, ‘Psychic Hearts’, sounded like the guy from Sonic Youth cutting loose, and making some tunes. ‘Trees Outside The Academy’ is a different story. Grand Master of Noise-Rock has unleashed a record full of surprises. First of all, the acoustic guitar takes prominence, and the noisy, de-tuned electric guitars are sitting around the studio, not quite gathering dust, not quite on fire either. As you might expect, an acoustic guitar in Moore’s hands sounds significantly different to any number of sub-standard acoustic troubadours. Occasionally jagged, always tightly coiled, it is a thing of beauty and danger, perfectly complimented by Sumara Lubelski’s violin, which snakes round the notes, drawing tighter and tighter.

As refreshing as it is to hear Thurston Moore delivering an album of accessible, engaging songs, his lyrics are more problematic. Esoteric in nature, it’s frequently difficult to decipher what he’s talking about, until he casually tosses out a killer line like: “And oh yeah I’ll always be yourr friend / And yeah at least just ‘till the end”.

And everything seems good: the guitar lines are licking at your ears, the violin is wrapped round your chest and the drums are pushing you on towards the light. May Thurston never die and just continue compelling us to Sonic Ecstasy.

Words_Steven Rainey

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FOR FANS OF: Beck, Dinosaur Jr
DOWNLOAD: ‘Frozen Gtr’, ‘Fri/end’

Issue #52 - Very Bro-some

Featuring Panama Kings, ASIWYFA, an investigation into DIY touring, details of what over 25 of the finest NI bands are up to in 2009 and much more.