Thurston Moore – Flow Critical Lucidity (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:29 minutes | 447 MB | Genre: Experimental Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Daydream Library
If we were to somehow put aside his work with Sonic Youth, his label Ecstatic Peace!, his immeasurable influence and collaborations, and hell, even his numerous talking head interviews on obscure music matters, Thurston Moore would still have an enviable career as a solo artist. Since 1995’s Psychic Hearts, Moore has released records varying in style and approach, but not quality—a phenomenon that naturally picked up in frequency following Sonic Youth’s hiatus in 2011. What makes his work so compelling is its lack of limitations; one record may sound like Sonic Youth in disguise while the next might be more emblematic of his guitar soundscapes, and the following could more closely mirror noise music.
Flow Critical Lucidity has both similarities and differences from its two predecessors. 2020’s relatively conventional By the Fire flew the closest to Sonic Youth since Psychic Hearts, while 2021’s surprise digital release, Screen Time, took a hard left turn into soundscapes, ambient and experimentalism. All of which is to say, this is a return to what Moore does best—riding the line between melody, dissonance and experimentalism.
Opening with the Eastern-influenced “New in Town,” Moore settles into discordant guitar alongside a beat focused on toms and bongos, adding in vocal lines along the way. “Sans Limites” (with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier on guest vocals) veers a bit towards Screen Time’s instrumental tendencies before sliding into a surprising verse to end the track. Using a funk-inspired beat as its backbone, “Rewilding” might be the closest that Moore comes to remaking “Vitamin C” by Can. “Shadow” leans into a Sonic Youth-style guitar part punctuated by shaker and a quiet kit that eventually leads to a fuzzy freakout, followed by 30 seconds of silence. Album highlight “Hypnogram” is a melancholy track that opens into bright layers of sunny guitar that, en masse, play out like a toy piano. By the Fire’s more structured approach appears in between moments of experimentation but never fully settles in.
Flow Critical Lucidity works on its own terms—with Thurston Moore opting for a sense of wonder and fearlessness over a strict focus on melody, and that’s a good thing. If we wanted a record that doesn’t take any chances, we have no business listening to him in the first place. – Fred Pessaro
Tracklist:
1-1. Thurston Moore – New In Town (03:38)
1-2. Thurston Moore – Sans Limites (05:07)
1-3. Thurston Moore – Shadow (05:30)
1-4. Thurston Moore – Hypnogram (07:34)
1-5. Thurston Moore – We Get High (06:20)
1-6. Thurston Moore – Rewilding (04:11)
1-7. Thurston Moore – The Diver (08:05)
