Thurston Moore – Demolished Thoughts – Matador – OLE953 – 1/2/6) - ***

For over two decades, Sonic Youth's ageless hipster Thurston Moore has pursued stylistically disparate side-projects, from jazz noise to finger-picked folk. Now he alights upon acoustic balladry, a scoundrel's last refuge.
Samara Lubelski's pellucid cello plugs gaps gaping for guitar feedback, and Moore's inescapable downtown sensibilities create an urban-pastoral hybrid. Circulation pulsates unamplified on the kind of intense open tunings Sonic Youth might have flayed electrically. In Silver Rain With A Paper Key sounds like Moore's parent group on an extended modal trip, but stripped and softened. Imagine the last English Romantic, Nick Drake, wearing sunglasses, after a New York makeover.

(22/5/11)