Moore Heavy Light Moving From Chelsea

Much of the excitement over Chelsea Light Moving, Thurston Moore's new project (or at least one of many) has already died down some. Thurston played here late last year, the same time I was throwing a Sonic Masala night (Go Violets, Do The Robot, Tiny Migrants - great lineup) so I didn't see the confusion of many as Thurston, who was booked as a solo show, came on stage and proceeded to play predominantly new tracks off Chelsea Light Moving. Not that most people should have complained that hard - he is one of modern rock's geniuses, and the new record isn't all that far removed from latter Sonic Youth meanderings anyway. It cannot be avoided - the guitar, the dissonance, the laconic drawl. Shit, the man still looks the same he did in the late 80s! And it's a call to arms - a fuck you to the direction that most "edgy" rock acts take in the 21st century. And there are moments when it is clear that this quartet has the potential to become a fully formed band, such as when 'Empires Of Time' collapses heavily into a morass of chugging sludge - the sense of communal abandon feel real, and is something that has been missing in much of SY's latter releases, for better or worse...

That said, BECAUSE it's a Thurston Moore project, Chelsea Light Moving comes slightly as a letdown. The production values are a little too slick, taking away the punch from some of these tracks. That said, if it was another band you would find gravel deeply embedded in the skin underneath your jaw. Maybe it'd be the same last year, if the debut self-titled album from Metz actually had Ian Mackaye in it - sure it's good, but we've heard better from the original well-spring...

Nevertheless, Chelsea Light Moving has its moments, and it's great to see Thurston freaking out more. This band will get tighter, dirtier, louder - and then we could have an atonal masterpiece. Grab it here through Matador Records.

Chelsea Light Moving - Alighted
Chelsea Light Moving - Empires Of Time

And to prove how great this can be...

I Welcome You Back With A Second Groovy Helping of Chelsea Light Moving

Welcome back! I've had a lovely break, but it's time to get back into the brilliance. A week late, but here is the second track from Thurston Moore's new act Chelsea Light Moving, 'Groovy & Linda'. I'll let the man himself introduce the track:

Not to be confused with the 1968 coffee house folk song by Tom Parrott (recorded for Smithsonian Folkways), this chug n’ shred burner is a psycho reflection of late 60s NYC East Village hippie idealism slayed and splayed in an Avenue B tenement boiler room. Groovy was the boy born James Leroy Hutchinson from modest American means and Linda was Linda Fitzpatrick, she from a privileged nuclear household, both runaways to the lysergic pulchritude of peace, love and marijuana. When The Fugs went on tour in 1967 ringleader Ed Sanders enlisted Groovy to care take his Peace Eye bookstore at a “secret location on the lower east side” (E. 10th St., actually). An incredible underground poetry bookstore/art gallery/hip hang out and orgy hook up scene, Groovy turned it into a barefoot mantra crash pad for all the beautiful zonkers and speed freaks of alphabet city. It was hard for even a grouch like Sanders to get too miffed at Groovy who actually believed in the wild animal dreams of hippie. Groovy was in love with Linda, a starry-eyed goddess nymph and they were the power flower couple of Tompkins Square. Tragedy flapped its nightmare wings and the two were found brutally beaten and killed bathed in blood and mystery amidst their tie-dye rags and rolling papers. It signaled the end of the fairytale that the media presented in day-glo color come-hitherness in the pages of Life and Look magazine. The following year Charles Manson and his dune buggy motherfuckers would exact an even farther cry of chaos and killing in the bamboozled hills of Los Angeles. We, Chelsea Light Moving, want to mantra the names of these two angels of beauty, regardless of the cynicism and naïveté of youth, for these are the charms of the soul. “Don’t shoot!!” ----- we are your children……

Chelsea Light Moving - Groovy & Linda

Sonic Youth By Any Other Name Still Sounds As Sweet

Want the best solution to overcoming a Death March Monday? I have it.

The biggest news to come out of the weekend was the unveiling of the first track recorded by Thurston Moore's new band, Chelsea Light Moving. It's a six minute number called 'Burroughs', and it is close enough to the Sonic Youth we know and love that, combined with Lee Ranaldo's solo outings, makes it a little easier to know that the New York gods haven't left us. The band has Moore out front, and running the rest of this well-oiled engine are Keith Wood (Hush Arbors) on guitar, Samara Lubelski (Jackie-O Motherfucker) on bass and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand Of The Man) on drums. Moore's iconic guitar scrawl and purge is present and accounted for, as is the artistic connections (the lyrics are based on the last words of amazing Beat author William Burroughs). Another track has been promised for the end of the week - yay! So divulge, OD on this - and come out of your slumber for the new track on Friday.

Chelsea Light Moving - Burroughs