Following the dissolution of Sonic Youth -- due to a very public separation between Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon -- each member of the beloved and influential band went their separate ways. For most artists fresh from an emotional break up, redefining yourself and finding something new outside the context of the band can come with some growing pains. For Moore, it’s been an opportunity to further explore aspects of his shape-shifting yet identifiable sound in different musical settings. First there was his Beck-produced 2011 album, Demolished Thoughts -- an introspective, almost spiritual acoustic record, full of evocative layers of guitars and strings. Then in 2012, he formed his new band Chelsea Light Moving, which put out its white noise punk debut last year. Now, Moore is back again with another solo effort, The Best Day. 

Recorded in London with his newly dubbed Thurston Moore Band -- featuring guitarist James Sedwards (Nøught), bassist Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley -- The Best Day splits the difference between Moore’s various eras, while pushing ahead into new territory. Throughout, there’s touches of sludgy ‘90s alt-rock, thorny post punk, and repetitive minor key vamps -- like on “Forevermore” and “Speak To The Wild” -- which build slowly-but-steadily toward transcendent peaks. For an artist who’s been a constant experimenter at the forefront of the indie rock scene seemingly from the start, Thurston Moore has little left to prove. But with The Best Day, he sounds primed to start the next new chapter.

For more photos, visit Soundcheck's Tumblr page.

Set List:

• "Speak To The Wild"
• "Detonation"
• "Grace Lake"

Interview Highlights

Thurston Moore, on his recent move to London:

I relocated to London because I felt like in my mid-50’s I was looking to some radical relocation experience. Moving to London has been really completely wonderful for me. It’s very welcoming there. I have friends there. I had been going back and forth quite a bit. I decided I wanted to spend more time there. This album was entirely written there.

On how sense of place impacts his songwriting:

Place certainly affects the emotional state of songwriting I wouldn't deny that. I always thought New York was very defining for Sonic Youth, even though Sonic Youth early on made a point of getting out of town. You know, we started touring immediately. When we started in ‘80-'81, Lee (Ranaldo) already had some experience touring with Glenn Branca. I remember right when we started getting together, Lee had names he knew from touring and we would just call people up. We rented a van and left town. Bands like us weren’t really doing that so much unless you had a booking agent. And booking agents were kind of a luxury that we did not have.

Bands like Bush Tetras -- at the time they were the greatest band in New York. They were always touring and I thought that was always exotic. So we just did it and played in front of eight people in Raleigh North Carolina. Eight people I still see. They’ll still come up to me and say, "I’ll tell you that was incredible."

On blurring the boundaries between traditional songwriting, composition and sonic experimentation: 

The idea of writing songs from new music composition, I didn't feel like it was so experimental. But maybe in the converse. The alternative tuning ideas, the different gauges of strings we used, and the implementation to know the guitars; that was all easy and fun to hear the different sounds we could make.It was sort of the structuring of the song where the experimental came in. That was more informed by experiencing the work of 20th century composition. But we were very young, we didn't really look at the delineation from what was happening in the academy to what was happening in the streets of New York. There was always a nice hybrid of that in New York.

For me I never really sort of looked at it anything other than this sort of liberation of approach to playing rock and roll music and still calling it rock and roll music. And that’s why we became a band that had a traditional aspect like two guitars, bass and drums, vocals and writing songs. We were embracing the traditional aspects of rock and roll like calling our album Bad Moon Rising in reference to Creedence Clearwater Revival which is the most traditional group in traditional rock.

On being reverent of, but not replicating Sonic Youth in his new works:

I don’t have any intention of replicating Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth is so life-defining for me. I mean I have “sonic life” tattooed on my arm from 1982. The biggest part of my professional and emotional life is Sonic Youth and it’s a very sacred thing. I have no intention of replicating that experience. You can’t just put 30 years on the table and say go for it. It’s something that was of its time. It was something we developed as a group, it was a very democratic thing. I would never want to disrespect the legacy of Sonic Youth by saying, “This is the new Sonic Youth” because it certainly is not.

On his writing process: 

When I write lyrics I never really write them with the state of intention to describe something or analyze something. I just use the practice of writing. For me it’s all about meter and rhythm and lines on the paper and the visual aspects and how that works as a creative piece of writing. When I write it’s first of all about writing that piece, and the practice of writing being a reflection of whatever emotional state might be there. That’s where the magic is. Taking the guitar out of the case and starting to play. I like to take restive moments between playing. This idea you write everyday, you play everyday --  I respect and understand that but I also do like locking it away a little bit and meditating on it. Then coming back to it and it comes out in a really interesting way.