‘In My Room’ With Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore opens up his London rehearsal space in the latest installment of Rolling Stone’s In My Room series.

The Sonic Youth frontman and his band — which boasts James Sedward on guitar, Deb Googe on baritone bass and Jem Doulton on drums — played three songs from his latest solo album, By the Fire. But, for the most part, the band delivered the tracks as full instrumentals, not only giving the performance a true “rehearsal” vibe but also shifting the focus to the dense sonic expanses contained in songs like “Hashish” and “Siren.”

The bulk of the performance was taken up by the mammoth By the Fire track, “Locomotives,” which clocks in at nearly 17 minutes. Following its extended drone-like intro, Moore even sang a few the song’s verses before he and his band plunged into a jittery experimental breakdown then emerged with a fiery alt-rock outro.

Moore released By the Fire in September, and it follows his 2017 album, Rock n Roll Consciousness. The record features lyrics penned by London-based poet Radieux Radio, as well as additional contributions from Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley and Negativland’s Leidecker.