Audiopile Review: If you haven’t been following Thurston Moore’s solo career, you might be surprised by how many truly wonderful song-based albums he’s made. It’s hard to name another member of a legendary rock band who has made such an exceptional string of solo LPs. “What about the godlike Peter Hammill of Van Der Graaf Generator fame?” you cry. Well yeah, obviously him, but Thurston is no slouch either. Outside Sonic Youth, he’s perhaps best known for 1995’s classic ‘Psychic Hearts’. Less well known but equally excellent are his autumnal singer-songwriter albums ‘Trees Outside the Academy’ (2007), ‘Demolished Thoughts’ (2011), and ‘The Best Day’ (2014). More recently, Thurston has put together a London-based band including My Bloody Valentine’s Debbie Googe, the world’s greatest bass player. This band has concentrated on developing Moore’s solo sound into something closer to SY albums like ‘Murray Street’ and ‘A Thousand Leaves’. The autumnal melancholy remains but with a gnarlier, wilder guitar focus. ‘Rock N Roll Consciousness’, from 2017, did a great job of this, but the brand-new ‘Flow Critical Lucidity’ takes things to a new level. Thurston’s voice sounds distinctly world-weary, but the arrangements are shockingly alive and vivid. The guitars are complemented by all manner of instruments, from hand drums and tuned percussion to various keyboards and electronics. It’s possibly his most ambitious solo releases to date and evidence that, world-weary or not, Thurston Moore is still at the height of his powers.

The Daydream Library Series record label has confirmed Thurston Moore’s new full-length album Flow Critical Lucidity, his ninth solo recording. Some of the songs were written and arranged in Europe and The United Kingdom and include lyrical references to their environments and inspired by nature, lucid dreaming, modern dance and Isadora Duncan. The album was arranged at La Becque in Switzerland and recorded at Total Refreshment Studios in London in 2022, and mixed at Hermitage Studios in London with Margo Broom in 2023. Flow Critical Lucidity comes from a lyric in the single “Sans Limites” and the album sleeve cover art features Jamie Nares’ “Samurai Walkman” — a helmet befitted with tuning forks. Jamie Nares (born in Great Britain) is a life-long friend of Thurston Moore from his New York No Wave days and the two have often collaborated in art and music. In 2023, Thurston released two singles: the energetic Isadora Duncan inspired “Isadora” with a music video starring Sky Ferreira. “Hypnogram,” which press called “one of the most intensely cerebral cuts Moore has ever released, [in which] he blends the more melodic moments of his former band with the layered, heady flourishes of his bassist Deb Googe’s main band, My Bloody Valentine. Emphatically conveying the feeling of dreams, the new material has fans excited for what the American has in store with his next album.” In April of 2024, Thurston shared the stirring Earth Day anthem “Rewilding.” The musician delivered chilling lines as he ruminated on the removal of the human hand from nature. Moore sang about renewal, and a period for friends of the Earth to sleep and realize a natural way by “coralmorphologically dreaming.” The musician said the U.K.’s rewilding movement aspires to reduce human influence on ecosystems. The players on Flow Critical Lucidity: Thurston Moore (vocals, guitar); Deb Googe (bass); Jon Leidecker (electronics); James Sedwards (piano, organ, guitar, glockenspiel); Jem Doulton (percussion); Laetitia Sadier (backing vocals on “Sans Limites”).