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album: Trees Outside the Academy
artist: Thurston Moore
label: Ecstatic Peace / 2007
score: 78
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by Tim Mathiesen
It took me quite a while to get into the music of Sonic Youth, but when I finally saw them live while they toured with the Flaming Lips I finally grew to appreciate their legendary sound. The dark minor-key melodies and crunching guitar solos mashed together into a strangely beautiful mess finally grabbed my attention and now is a regular part of my listening experience.
Then band member Thurston Moore comes along with his second solo effort, Trees Outside the Academy, and takes the signiture Sonic Youth sound and reinvents it for acoustic guitar. The genius of his songwriting is no longer hidden under distortion and loud layers of various instrumental sound but is gorgeously laid out in simple acoustic arrangements. This man may have recorded one of the most beautiful rock albums of the year. Yet, it wouldn't be a Thurston Moore album without high pitched distortion sounds and a strange monotonous song mixed in to distract the listener from the near perfect songwriting.
The album ends with "Thurston@13" introducing us to a young Mr. Moore demonstrating the sounds of various common house hold objects (i.e. coins, pencil, scissors, etc.) which he admits is a waste of time. The fascinating thing about that final track is the fact that he included it on the ablum at all. Is it a complete waste of time or is it an example of his artistic boldness? Was it insecurity that drove him to admit that he was wasting time? New sounds and musical styles are discovered within the "wasted time" of experimenting with existing sounds and instruments. And if anyone is a pioneer of modern alternative music, it's Thurston Moore. Even though Trees Outside the Academy is only a reinvention of the existing sound of Sonic Youth, it is still an incredibly beautiful record that was never meant to break new ground but just experiment with sound.
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