Thurston Moore- Trees Outside the Academy
With a career spanning three decades and several genres, Thurston Moore, co-founder of the legendary post-punk noise band Sonic Youth, recently released his latest solo publishing. Trees Outside the Academy is a lyrically poetic and sonically acoustic frolic through the acid-washed audio mind of Thurston Moore.
The album is predominantly folk-based and acoustic, yet some tracks exhibit signatures of Sonic Youth-esque noise intros such as on the track “American Coffin.” Other tracks like “Wonderful Witches” and “Off Work” are more electric guitar based rock tunes that do not necessarily allude to Sonic Youth’s noise sound, but a more reserved, anti-melody style of songwriting.
From the album art to the songs themselves, Trees seems to act as a self-portrait for Moore. The CD case and liner notes are littered with personal home photos of the artist as well as copies of letters to family members and other bits of art that seem introspective. Songs carry an ever-hazy vision of private thoughts from the mind of Thurston, and (as always) cryptic poetry abounds throughout the lyrics especially on track 5, “Fri/End,” which is a happy-go-lucky tune written on acoustic guitar and complimented by stringed accompaniment. “Fri/End” is such a delightful, romping song, yet in an attempt to explain what the song is actually about one must pretend to understand Moore’s descriptions of emotion through descriptions of visual color patterns. Most of Moore’s lyrics are so acute and strange that even if one feels lost in the poetry of the moment one does not even care.
This is a great album for fans of Thurston Moore or even pure Sonic Youth fans. None of the tracks on this album fail to please or entertain.
No comments:
Post a Comment