The highly eclectic electric guitarist and leader of the highly acclaimed
Sonic Youth,
Thurston Moore has a remarkable ability to expand his playing, merge and even leap across genres, and interact with improvisers with whom he would not seem to share common ground. For this recording on the esteemed avant-garde jazz-oriented Intakt label,
Moore is joined by percussionist
Tom Surgal and the remarkable
William Winant for the lengthy title piece (nearly an hour in length) and the much shorter "Noise to Nowhere." Little sounds prevail, as there is very little of anything conventional to be found here. Often, there is an extreme drop in volume, but there can also be long and sometimes ear-shattering waves of sound. Rambling at times, and without discernible direction, each of the tunes expands, contracts, and builds and shifts directions slowly, with all three musicians performing most of the time. This is not likely to be of considerable interest to most jazz listeners -- even those enamored by the avant-garde. ~ Steven Loewy