When free radicals become free agents

In the late ’80s, close to the release of a little-known double LP called Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth were hell-bent on destroying their amps, massacring their guitars, and rewriting the rules of what accessible rock ‘n’ roll could be. Meanwhile, however, frontman Thurston Moore and bandmate Lee Ranaldo were swooning over folk-guitar icon John Fahey.

Such blasphemy could’ve been a deal-breaker for kids who then wanted nothing to do with anything unplugged. But with Fahey’s music, Moore was tuning into something more aligned with his avant-garde tastes. “Lee and I heard that he used industrial sounds and train sounds on his records, stuff like that,” he recalls of Fahey’s music. Or, to put a more scholarly spin on it, “He was extrapolating Eastern-influenced concepts in American blues idioms. He was a fascinating figure.”

Two decades and 17 Sonic Youth records later, Moore is only now releasing his second solo album of proper songs, Trees Outside the Academy. (He released the ragtag punk-rock masterpiece Psychic Hearts in 1995, and has dabbled in various free-jazz side projects along the way.) The big surprise? It’s folky. And it kind of sounds like a Fahey record. Tracks like “Frozen Gtr” and “The Shape Is in a Trance” feature delicately strummed, alternately tuned acoustic guitars and beautiful, swirling violin arrangements. So what gives? Why abandon the full-throttle, no-wave guitar suicide that Moore pioneered for a roots-rock style perfected decades ago? “Because coming out of the New York punk-rock scene, it’s the last thing people would expect you to do,” says Moore. In other words, folk is the new punk.

Read full article (Village Voice, September 18, 2007)

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