Thurston Moore

(Traduzione di ChatGPT)

Once, Thurston Moore sang "Kill Yr. Idols," ideally leading a movement aimed at breaking down every pre-established musical certainty, with the goal of developing new artistic perspectives and unheard-of ways of playing an electric guitar. But in the end, he was the first not to knock those idols off their pedestal, as you can see in a few pages of his voluminous yet smooth-flowing memoir, Sonic Life, which hit bookstores just a few weeks ago. Moore lingers on tales of New York in the seventies and eighties, when he was young: the Big Apple, its streets, meeting places, concerts, and artists. His references from that time are all laid out in the book, displayed as tools for reconstructing Moore's very personality. For us, too, it's hard to tear down a monument like Thurston, a cornerstone in the musical education of our generation. We’re so fond of him that we treat every project he undertakes with great care—even his ninth solo album, Flow Critical Lucidity, though it doesn't hold many reasons to be remembered on its own.

In addition to adjusting guitar tunings, Moore now also pays attention to lowering the pitch of vocal parts to give comfort to his vocal cords. The album opens with the organized dissonances of "New In Town," layered over percussion that gives the piece an ethnic, meditative breath. The next track, "Sans limites," begins with a piano that supports the harmony, over which Moore's signature guitar arpeggios, with their unmistakably Sonic Youth flavor, soon layer in. Midway through, the drums enter for the first time, softening the song before it flows into a duet with Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab. It’s an invitation never to set too many limits, to fight wearing that helmet pictured on the cover—an artwork by Jamie Nares, a veteran of the no-wave movement and a musician himself, having played in James Chance's Contortions and Jim Jarmusch's Del-Byzanteens.

Flow Critical Lucidity also features Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine's bassist, now a collaborator with Moore), Jon Leidecker of Negativland, James Sedwards of Nought, and Jem Doulton of Roisin Murphy's backing band. Thurston's wife, Eva Prinz, known artistically as Radieux Radio, contributed to the lyrics.

When "Shadow" begins, it's evident how much the Sonic Youth sound coefficient increases within the album—a track easily capturing the role of the nostalgic fans' favorite song (thanks also to the indispensable dose of feedback distortion).

The following track, "Hypnogram," opens with a familiar timbre, reminiscent of other ballads Moore has composed in the past, with that touch of melancholy now accentuated by the awareness of passing years. "Hypnogram" includes an instrumentally mellow, lysergic section, but it's only the beginning: the atmosphere becomes even more psychedelic in the next track, "We Get High," with its soft and narcotic pace. "Rewilding," in contrast, is smoother, featuring nice drum and guitar phrasing but lacking bite, a trait that vanishes entirely in the eight minutes of "The Diver," a typical filler piece stretched a bit too long.

The limited vinyl edition includes the bonus track "Isadora," released as a single in March 2023. Stylistically distinct from the rest of the tracklist, it represents the most "pop" chapter—one of eight tracks that come from a 66-year-old still with much to communicate to the world, in a more accessible and far less avant-garde way than Kim Gordon. These are two worlds that continue to drift apart, much to the dismay of those who'd like to see them together on stage once more. At present, however, this reunion seems increasingly remote.

27/10/2024