Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore started Sonic Youth in 1980. Since then Thurston Moore has been at the forefront of the alternative rock scene since that particular sobriquet was first used to signify any music that challenged and defied the mainstream standard.

With Sonic Youth, Moore turned on an entire generation to the value of experimentation in rock n roll – from its inspiration on a nascent Nirvana, to Sonic Youth’s own Daydream Nation album being chosen by the US Library of Congress for historical preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2006.

Thurston records and performs in a cavalcade of disciplines ranging from free improvisation to acoustic composition to black/white metal/noise disruption. He has worked with Yoko Ono, John Zorn, Bobby Gillespie, David Toop, Cecil Taylor, John Paul Jones, Faust, Glenn Branca and many others. His residency at the Louvre in Paris included collaborations with Irmin Schmidt of CAN and Stephen O’Malley. Alongside his various activities in the musical world, he is involved with publishing and poetry, and teaches writing at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, Boulder CO, a programme founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman in 1974. Thurston also teaches music at The Rhythmic Music Conservatory (Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium) in Copenhagen.

Presently Thurston Moore resides in London. He performs and records solo, with various ensembles and in his own band, The Thurston Moore Group (with mbv’s Deb Googe, Jem Doulton, Jon Leidecker and Alex Ward).

Moore recently published a memoir SONIC LIFE (DoubleDay in USA / Faber & Faber in UK) documenting his childhood, coming of age, early musical work with composer Glenn Branca and origin story of band Sonic Youth. SONIC LIFE: A MEMOIR appeared on the ‘Best Of’ lists in Vogue Magazine, The New York Times, LA Times, Rolling Stone, MOJO and other publications.

Thurston Moore’s latest album FLOW CRITICAL LUCIDITY includes singles ‘Hypnogram’ which the press called “one of the most intensely cerebral cuts Moore has ever released [….] 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...”. His Earth Day single ‘Rewilding’ was called “introspective and dreamy with an addictive jazz groove” and his latest single ‘Sans Limites’ features Stereolab’s Lætitia Sadier on backing vocals, and lyrics that “allude to the natural splendor of the environment and extend mentions of effulgent dreaming and modern dance, a la [Isadora] Duncan.”