A beautifully crafted solo by a founding member of Sonic Youth. Thurston Moore’s career has explored the nether regions of harmonic phenomena. The band is an apprenticeship of penultimate pop cosmography. It instructs Mr. Moore into forays of free noise illprovisation which in turn inform the “youth” with a circular compositional cry. With artists William Winant, Tom Surgal, Rashied Ali, Jackson Krall, Keiji Haino, and billions of others, he has realized a musical ambition and, consequently, tonight’s title/theme: Total Destruction.
Along with his work as part of the acclaimed art/punk rock band Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore also pursued numerous solo and side projects, including Even Worse and the Dim Stars with Richard Hell. His first solo album, 1994’s Psychic Hearts, featuring ex-Half Japanese guitarist Tim Foljahn and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, had an appropriately offhand feel but was far from sloppy. Along with carrying Sonic Youth into the 2000s, Moore collaborated with artists including DJ Spooky and Nels Cline, wrote music reviews and other pieces for Arthur magazine, and issued a book, Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture, in 2005. His second song-based album, Trees Outside of the Academy, arrived in 2007, and featured largely acoustic arrangements and cameos by Shelley, Samara Lubelski, and Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis. In 2010, Moore guested on the Hat City Intuitive’s A Ticket for Decay and began laying the foundation for another solo effort, Demolished Thoughts, which appeared the following year.
