Trees Outside the Academy

Submitted by Richard Norbury on 22 June 2017 - 8:09am

Cover:

Artist:

Thurston Moore

album-ID:

a_195

Nationality:

USA

Year:

2 007

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Frozen Gtr.*The Shape Is in a Trance*Honest James*Silver>Blue*Fri/End*American Coffin*Wonderful Witches + Language Meanies*Off Work*Never Day*Free Noise Among Friends*Trees Outside the Academy*Thurston@13

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_74

Now-num:

2 017

Spotify-URL:

4lPEJkQdtYg33OlEpH8iua

Short-title:

treesOutside

nominator-ID:

u_14

Meeting-date:

Thursday, 24 August 2017

MusicBrainz-URL:

78fa2706-de35-399c-9772-0e8a46e2d8e3

Wikipedia-URL:

Trees_Outside_the_Academy

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

trees-outside-the-academy/thurston-moore

Discogs-URL:

Thurston-Moore-Trees-Outside-The-Academy/master/11263

Allmusic-URL:

r1207324

Musixmatch-URL:

Thurston-Moore/Trees-Outside-the-Academy-4

Pitchfork-URL:

10681-trees-outside-the-academy/

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reviewers-IDs data

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65

reviewed by

David Eastman

It went somewhere, but never arrived

1-6-7

10-12

I suppose when someone is known as 'that bloke from Sonic Youth' he is either going to do something similar, or something very different.

This album is very nicely produced, with possibly the first track standing out as a marker of quality; but after a few listens you realise that you have been transported absolutely nowhere.

This is almost Beck. This is staring at the Pavement. But the spread of things is such that no singular style emerges. In the past you could blame the record company, but this is certainly the artist trying to be a free wheeling American singer / songwriter.

Maybe the voice is a problem. It is very nice, but a bit bland. I'm wondering if this has unabalnced the writing. This feels the polar opposite of someone like Suzanne Vega who got most people after three notes of any track. She had the confidence to write interesting stuff, knowing that we were going to listen. I think Mr Moore believes we may not be listening, and is looking for reasons to change that.

I'm no longer listening.
65

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

What you're about to read is me doing my review

3-5-6-8

1-4-7

I've seen him performing live, doing his screaming noise experiments stuff, which is generally interesting. Here he is trying to do something completely different, singer songwriter stripped back pieces without much electrics – fair dues and all that but I'm not convinced he’s a master of all approaches. Some of these felt a bit basic and uninspiring but I think there are a few good ones through the middle part of the album that work well.

His voice is a factor, I find it a bit thin and limited. When a song is strong I think that kind of helps in a way, as it makes it feel more honest and driven, when the song is week then the whole thing feel more lifeless and pointless. So I kind of went from thinking his voice was being a disadvantage to an advantage, as I warmed to the album generally. However, I was pleased when they mixed it up, the duet with the female vocalist on Honest James and the instrumental bits. Generally there’s some variety throughout, with a nice touch of violin on The Shape is in a Trance and Fri/end and great de-tuned piano on American Coffin, which was probably my personal highlight, along with Off Work.

There are little touches of other artists that come across, that I can help mentioning: Neil Young; Pavement; Beck; a sort of alt-country vibe like M Ward / Smog / Lambchop or similar; one even sounded like Sonic Youth, which I guess proves something. All in all, I can kind of seeing where he’s going and why he’s going there but not sure he entirely pulled it off.
65

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
58

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Enjoyable enough listen, nothing offensive but overall not memorable.