so you are saying I should steal it from the metawebs torrent-style, and then badmouth it here for all it's pussy-softness? ha!

CLM played a very entertaining show last Wednesday in San Francisco. Thurston was in good spirits and the band sounded great. All solo material of course, mostly from the new album. But it was a fairly short show -- about a 55 min set plus a 15 min encore, done at 10:30pm. And too bad the venue was less than half filled. . .

Unfortunately, unlike at his past shows there, the venue staff did not allow audio or video recording. I'm pretty sure this wasn't Thurston's doing, as there are open recordings from earlier in this tour. There seemed to be some talk about a video crew coming in to shoot the show, which would have led the venue to limit other recording, but I never saw any pro video cameras there. Too bad.

 

Chelsea Light Moving 4 by michaelz1, on Flickr

 

Thurston Moore 8 by michaelz1, on Flickr

A bunch more fotos here:

http://flickr.com/michaelz1/sets/72157633085720324/

I have listened to the stream when it was posted on here. One listen was enough for me to decide it is shite.

*hi-five*

This finally hit my doorstep, and I just finished my first listen. Totally loved it! I was already surprised by how much I enjoyed the four songs that trickled out last year, and the album is rounded out with songs of the same quality. Sounds great - sparse, dirty, skronky, noisy, simple and fun!

I'm sorry I missed their tour, I'm sure they tear this shit up live. I'm glad Thurston put together a band like this, it strikes me as a little more sincere than some of the recent acoustic singer/songwriter stuff (that said, I was sad to see no response to the recent, well thought-out Demolished Thoughts interpretation thread, though I'm guilty of not replying myself - I liked much of that album, btw).

Looking forward to hearing this again. "Heavenmetal" really opens the CD? Odd. I was surprised to see the alternate cover lettering on the vinyl, does the CD still have the white block text version? The LP jacket/art is very nice.

Now I'll read back through the thread and see how much of this was already mentioned...

ultimately my sentiments exactly. I enjoy it less and less with every listen.

I'll happily post tabs of these tunes if anyone wants to do em, btw!

I'm not picking on you, because you're obviously entitled to your opinion (and I'm not actually sure if you're referring to the sound quality or the actual songwriting), but I'm wondering if you're basing this on one listen to a low quality stream?

I found the LP sounded a little mid-rangey and "boomy" (as somebody mentioned earlier in the thread). I hate talking about this because I'm not qualified to articulate it, I just know what I mean...haha. I was surprised though, because I remembered the preview mp3s sounding pretty damn good. I'm curious to check out the flac download (nice option, btw!) and see how it compares to the LP. I didn't hear any clipping (also mentioned in this thread), or at least nothing as obvious as some of the moments on The Eternal, but maybe the digital copy will be a different experience.

I wonder if anybody takes Genteel´s posts seriously. She hasn´t said anything positive ever about new Sy or Sy-related doings here as long as I have been here.

Oh. :o

Genteel is indeed a "he", however as for any women, when he says "yes" he means "no" and vice versa. I take it that he loves late SY, solo Thurston and CLM.

I noticed Thurston's publishing is under Older Poets With Messy Lives and not Feminist, Religious.

Not sure what I would have thought of the album had I heard the sequence that begins with "Heavenmetal", but I think "Lip" is a killer opener for the LP.

I got this vinyl yesterday and after two rounds my thoughts are:

The cover art is beautiful. Lots of interesting pictures to discover while listening to the album.

Music is great! Band sounds bit heavier/thicker than Sonic Youth did and grooves (almost) equally. Style reminds me of Psychic Hearts and The Eternal. While this is titled as a band album, Thurston dominates every song with his vocals and guitar, so this could easily be his solo album, like "Thurston Moore: Chelsea Light Moving". My favorite tracks so far are Empires of Time, Alighted, Burroughs and Frank O'Hara Hit.

The bonus 7" is also ok. Suprisingly there came also CD with vinyl, but I haven't checked it yet.

Is he writing these songs with Wood, Lubelski and Moloney? which may be why its not Feminist Religious which I think was strictly his writing.


I agree with Lip... the cd is sequenced somewhat oddly together.

It credits all the songs to Thurston Moore, so I'm not sure. There's no publishing credit on Demolished Thoughts.

The songs sounded to me really unworthy of further listening based purely on one listen and there's not going back here. As you mentioned, we are entitled to our own opinion. The fidelity of preview mp3s is too often used as an excuse to investigate further on records that aren't worth the effort at all. This is one of those cases for me. The songs are rubbish, whichever bitrate you listen to them at. Besides, the nature of this album certainly has none of the subtleties required for more patient listening sessions. It's Thurston Moore's band we are talking about, remember. The man himself hates mp3s, whether they come in high or low quality.

So that there aren't any misunderstandings, I appreciate you are a dedicated fan and all the work you do for the band. I still don't think that this should influence any critical opinions on the output of Sonic Youth or any of their members from other fans. You could argue that I'm not even pointing out why I so dislike the record in detail, and you'd be right. Familiarity with the culture surrounding the band taught me that it's not going to take me or you anywhere if I detailed why they've lost it a long time ago other than exchanging tedious replies on a music forum.

I was just curious if you were criticizing the sound quality or the songs themselves based on the single listen. There's plenty of music in the world so I certainly don't fault you for moving on if it didn't interest you!

I gave the LP a spin last night to get ready for tonight....half of the album felt...empty. I'm getting that sonic groove Thurston always does...but man....kind of sounds like shit without the rest of the band sometimes. Alighted and Burroughs are wicked tracks for sure.

I think the word is elements. One person can only conjour up so many elements. We are used to listening to albums with many people involved so when you hear a project with only one principle person it sounds sparse.