Art rock-pioneer Thurston Moore has just released his rapturously-received new solo album, By The Fire, which NMEs review hailed as containing some of his boldest and most invigorating work to date. Despite being released under his own name, its a collaborative effort that continues his creatively fecund partnership with his band that includes his old group Sonic Youths Steve Shelley and My Bloody Valentines Debbie Googe.

We caught up with Thurston for a quick chat about his new record, trying to inject positivity and escapism into turbulent world, and how he used quarantine as an opportunity to write a quasi-memoir called Sonic Life.

Last year, I put out a Spirit Counsel triple CD set featuring one extended instrumental composition per disc. I toured that for a year and half. There was no microphone onstage and I wasnt singing. While I wanted to continue that, I was missing more proper rock music those pop-rock nuggets. So I was trying to figure out how to do both things. I decided to write a response that dealt with Spirit Counsel, particularly the instrumental Venus the last song on the album which I figured would be my final say with that period of writing, before it was time to get back on the microphone. I started writing other songs that would be a balance between the Spirit Counsel material and the more proper pop stuff I could do.

When I was sequencing the record, it was right when lockdown was happening, and it allowed me to be more contemplative of what I wanted to present. I think it would have been a different record if it was more business as usual. I wanted the record to come out of the gate with a real happiness, and then be a bit more serious as it went along, and have this deliverance at the end with Venus. I feel the enforced isolation has given this record its vibe but it also meant I wanted it to be something with a sense of hopefulness and liberation as well.

Yeah and I think thats perfectly valid. Were all in the same boat and still dont know how this is going to develop and its all a bit unwieldy. Looking at the records coming out at the same time as mine, I see Public Enemys album [What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down] which is a very activist record. Thats important and I would hope there are more direct-action voices like Chuck D. But at the same time, there should be work in resistance to all the negativity thats being enacted in the media and on the political stage.

To have resistance by creating work that has a sense of creative impulse, joy, and is against divisiveness. Its about recognising and dignifying the marginalised on the planet right now. And understanding that migration is a very natural occurrence to not demonise it as something that is a threat. There is a nihilism that goes on in the highest levels whether its the Brexiteering Boris Johnsons or the racist dog-whistling of Donald Trump. None of this spelt out clearly on the record, but just calling it By The Fire is about communication. Theres a duplicity in that title.

Thurston Moore (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)

The title was taken from me seeing Julien Temples film Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, where he had musicians who knew Joe when he was in The 101ers sitting round a campfire talking about the Joe Strummer they knew before he joined the punk rock brigade. I thought that was a moving and wonderful vision. And then [I was] equating it with people having the courage and urge to go out into the streets physically while theres a pandemic going on, to raise their voices against oppression to the point where theyre so angry that there are fires erupting in the street. I wanted to get that across in the title alone.

I think my styles transition into each other fairly organically. If I give any distinction to anything, its whether I play in the context of free improvisation or in composition. But even in the history of Sonic Youth, the idea of incorporating methods of free improvisation into a composed piece have always been at play. I like to work in both genres, but Im careful not to get tripped up without being fully-focussed on one genre, you can be a little junior sometimes, and so its a bit of a high-wire act. The idea in free improvisation music that there are no leaders and theres no hierarchy in players is something I find alluring I bring those ideas into the democracy of my band.

I never tell the players in my group what to play, just as I never told anybody in Sonic Youth what to play. When Id bring a song to Sonic Youth, I could never tell them what to play Id only make suggestions. Having my name on the marquee [as a solo artist], I should say: This is exactly what I want, do it or Ill get somebody else who can. But I dont I never want to be in a situation where I am anything more than somebody who suggests things.

Ive been embracing it. Its allowed me to focus on a project Ive considered for a number of years, which is writing about my history of coming to New York City as a teenager and finding my footing as a musician. I wanted to write about the process of that and what was informing, not only myself, but community of people I was involved with. In this last couple of months, I was able to put pen to paper and write about this world of inspiration.

Its not only just Well heres my life story, as I wanted to get away from the ego of it and talk about the information so when you first see a picture of Iggy and the Stooges in 1973 in a magazine, why did it have such an effect on you? Why did that photograph of something that was so subversive in the music scene appeal to somebody from a safe and protected middle-class lifestyle? I wanted to write about being in the milieu of the CBGBs explosion, and essay what was happening in the flurry of those years especially between 77 and 79 when this incredible seismic shift happened in underground culture. Ive been focussing on putting this manuscript together that Ill hopefully publish in a years time. Im calling it Sonic Life for want of a better title!

By The Fire is out now. Stay tuned for an upcoming Thurston-starring edition of our longstanding weekly Does Rock N Roll Kill Braincells?! feature, where the 62-year-old is quizzed on his eventful life.

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Thurston Moore on killer new music and the high order nihilism of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump - NME