THURSTON MOORE'S CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING

BOYS CLUB FOR MEN

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore trips back to the future with his new band Chelsea Light Moving

by Matt Ashare |  

Posted March 6, 2013

Hostess Twinkies™, the highly coveted iron gamepiece in Monopoly™, and, apparently, much of the Eastern Seaboard™of the United States. . . That's three somewhat significant cultural referents that seemed fairly stable until relatively recently. And, if your taste in music happens to skew in a particular direction, you might want to add Sonic Youth to that list. Yes, the art-damaged, avant-rock juggernaut who brought a different shade of dissonance to the table when they emerged from NYC's post-punk underground in the mid-’80s, helped usher in the Nirvana-led alternative implosion of the early-’90s, and laid much of the intellectual and aural foundation for what we know think of as "indie," are on a hiatus of indeterminate length that began in 2011. The announcement from guitarist Lee Ranaldo that Sonic Youth were "ending for a while" came shortly after the arrival of even more shocking news: Bassist Kim Gordon and guitarist Thurston Moore, the alt-rock übercouple, the veritable heart and soul of the band, the indie underground's triumphant answer to Hollywood's revered Brangelina power surge, had — audible gasp — separated.

       I don't mean to make light of their personal difficulties because, well, for a particular segment of the music-consuming public, Kim and Thurston's marriage embodied much of what was good about the subculture commonly known as indie-rock. Their blissful union amounted to living, breathing proof that go-go boots and mommyhood weren't mutually exclusive; that the geeked out, vinyl diehard in all of us was capable of carrying on a meaningful relationship; that you could have your cake and beat it too; that the family who plays together, stays together. . . Okay, I'll stop with the hyperbole. But, seriously, Kim and Thurston were a beacon to hipsters across this great land, or, at least, to that microculture of too-cool-for-anything-but-gradschool folks who, understandably, liked the idea that subversive rock-and-roll types might find happiness somewhere over the consumerist rainbow, perhaps in the idyllic, progressive surroundings of Northampton (a/k/a Massachusetts' answer to Portlandia).

       The good news, which is sorta old news, is that Kim and Thurston appear to be on reasonably friendly terms. Last year they collaborated together with Yoko Ono on an album fittingly titled YOKOKIMTHURSTON, which may, in fact, amount to the hipster equivalent of marriage counseling. The ambiguous, but not at all terrible news is that the seemingly indefatigable Moore, whose credits on Wikipedia include eight releases under the special heading of "limited edition noise, experimental, drone projects," as well as three proper solo albums and 16 in 30 years with Sonic Youth, hasn't paused to take much of a breath. No, Moore, who released a solo album in 2011, has already cobbled together a new full-length with a newly minted band of the same name, Chelsea Light Moving.

       It's not that Moore isn't familiar with the dynamics of supply-and-demand economics. It's just that he doesn't sweat the big stuff. Which is pretty much in keeping the insouciant, down-to-earth attitude he's cultivated over the years. He is, however, a big fan of the small stuff, which is also very much in keeping with his cultivated attitude. So, it may not come as a terribly huge surprise that the name of Moore's new foursome is something of a clever, if potentially pretentious nod in the direction of two titans of 20th-century avant-garde composition. Legend has it that back in the late-’60s, Chelsea Light Moving was a hauling company of sorts run by the then aspiring minimalist pioneers Steve Reich and Philip Glass, a bit of trivial ephemera that might pass for received wisdom in some corners of the geekster galaxy.

       It's actually kind of amazing that some fledgling Brooklyn indie band didn't beat Moore to the trademark office with the Chelsea Light Moving moniker. But, it also makes a certain poetic sense: Moore, more than anyone, has stood as a uniquely approachable bridge between the subterranean post-punk underground and the more rarified realm of the classical avant-garde. That's really a big part of the guy's charm.

       In an even more poetic sense, Chelsea Light Moving is an apt name for a project that largely comes across as an attempt on Moore's part to reconnect with some of his earliest inspirations. From that perspective, Chelsea Light Moving — on which Moore is joined by bassist Samara Lubelski, guitarist Keith Wood, and drummer John Moloney — is quite a departure from Moore's three previous song-based solo albums. Each of those found him taking off on tangents that reflected the evolution of Sonic Youth, a band who brought a whole new level of studied yet natural, sophisticated and challenging discord into the rock lexicon and then worked their way back to a friendly relationship with the ghost of melody past. Indeed, his 2011 solo disc, Demolished Thoughts, was a largely acoustic offering produced by Beck that gracefully reflected the quiet storms that Sonic Youth had lately been exploring in their expanding quest for some lost, mystical chord.

       In spite of his penchant for sustained outbursts of blistering noise, Moore always came across as the pop romantic in Sonic Youth, as the guy in the band most naturally attuned to balancing chaos and harmony. There are glimpses of that gentler, nuanced side of Moore on Chelsea Light Moving's debut, which opens on a reflective note with the short and bittersweet "Heavenmetal." Spare, airy guitar figures yearn for resolution, as Moore warmly warbles, "The storm is natural enough/This has everything to do with you/And your tiniest hair/Be a warrior and love life. . ." But, the album quickly darkens, as bristling distortion, pounding drums, and raw noise filter into view on "Sleeping Where I Fall" and the more elliptical "Alighted."

       In a lot of ways, Chelsea Light Moving does bring to mind the untrained rawness of early Sonic Youth, and the band mimics Sonic Youth's line-up (three dudes and a female bassist). What's missing is the mitigating, mercurial allure that Kim Gordon brought to the band as they came into their own. It's as if, determined to strip things back down to the nascent spark that set Sonic Youth off in ’82, Moore found solace in convening a knowingly noisy boys club for men, mostly, and quickly, perhaps reflexively churned out a handful and a half of tunes meant to tear at the artful edifice that Sonic Youth had become. He even revisits a few salient touchstones from Sonic Youth's youth: junky novelist William S. Burroughs (in the churning noise rocker "Burroughs"); poet Frank O'Hara and rock mythology in general (in the grippingly angular and gorgeously broken "Frank O'Hara's Hit"); and, finally, the notorious trainwreck that were the Germs, the first-gen LA hardcore punk band whose tune "Communist Eyes" Chelsea Light Moving cover as the album comes to a close.

       Actually, they don't just cover the song; they more or less recreate it, in all it's lo-fi glory. Much like the original, the Chelsea Light Morning version sounds like it was recorded live on a boombox, with Moore straining to keep up with the accelerated beat as buzzsaw guitars carve away at a primal riff. It's good, nostalgic fun in the form of a referential inside joke that's sorta supposed to be obvious. Yeah, it's a little pointless. But, I'm not really sure Moore is required to have a point at this juncture in his career.