Thurston Moore

★★★ Screen Time SOUTHERN LORD. DL/LP

A guitarist’s soundtrack for “dream time, meditation, hypnagogia and pillow talk.” In autumn 2020, Moore released a super-charged band double album, By The Fire, finished in the early months of lockdown. Only in summer 2021 did he respond fully to the scenario, going the opposite way with solo guitar instrumentals intending to sooth and inspire (the LP title is inspired by the atypical view that digital media can be beneficial, by promoting “shared exchange”) with its bell-like tones and drones; not for nothing did Moore name his own label imprint Ecstatic Peace. Yet his trademark dissonance and tunings introduce uneasy faultlines in The Station and The Home. After nine songs averaging under four minutes, Moore closes with The Realization, 10 minutes of converging light and dark, and one of the finest pieces of music that he has put his name to.