Matador

Thurston Moore’s Demolished Thoughts sounds – maybe unsurprisingly – a lot like acoustic Sonic Youth. But that’s no small feat, given Moore’s band’s love of noise, re-tuned guitars and left-turn song structures. In fact, Demolished Thoughts is stunning. Moore’s sexy/jagged guitar melodies find a rich, new life amid violins, harp and subtle arrangement maneuvers by producer Beck Hansen. A quietly lush chorus emerges in “Blood Never Lies.” An even more lush string-noise crescendo caps “Orchard Street.” Moore’s laconic romanticism is on full display throughout, sounding like his beloved Television, but just as much like the celestial jazz logic of Joni Mitchell, Astral Weeks era Van Morrison or some other perfectly pretty songsmith the average noisenik might not cop to digging.