http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/ar...ts&oref=slogin
THURSTON MOORE
“Trees Outside the Academy”
(Ecstatic Peace)
At this point you might expect a new solo record by Thurston Moore to be a hard-hat research project: free improvisation, overdriven and dissonant blots of sound. He’s made a few of these over the last dozen years and performed as an improvising guitarist with an atlas of musicians, from Cecil Taylor to
Yoko Ono. Looking at his list of collaborations is how you trace the arc of his record collection, his friendships and ultimately his down-time calendar between tours with Sonic Youth.
But “Trees Outside the Academy” is an album of songs, mellowly sung by Mr. Moore, sometimes harmonizing with Christina Carter, from the band Charalambides. His droning riffs, played mostly on acoustic guitar, make the songs mellowed-out cousins to Sonic Youth’s; Steve Shelley, also of Sonic Youth, is the drummer, and the violinist Samara Lubelski plays counterlines to the melodies. It’s all very organized, almost bucolic; there are only a few blasts of noise.
Its other collaborators include Mr. Moore’s old and new friends, from two different generations of experimental music and indie-rock; they include the young electronics improviser Leslie Keffer, who creates something that sounds like a hailstorm of glass, surging and then receding in Mr. Moore’s pleasant song “Off Work,” and the guitarist J Mascis of the 80’s band Dinosaur Jr., plugging in to play a few anachronistic rock-god solos. But you need no prior knowledge of any of them, because “Trees Outside the Academy” isn’t an insular record. It’s easy and open, almost transparent.
BEN RATLIFF