Thurston Moore & Kramer announce collaborative debut album, share “Urn Burial”

Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and producer, musician and Shimmy-Disc founder Kramer (now officially Bonner Kramer) have known each other for more than four decades but have never made an album together until now. They Came Like Swallows – Seven Requiems for the Children of Gaza will be out May 1 via Silver Current Records.

“Kramer and I reconnected in Miami, Florida, a few years back, many, many years after each of us had departed NYC on separate life adventures,” Thurston says. “It was only a matter of time before we started making plans to record together and, with his irrepressible due diligence, he quickly set up a mobile recording contraption in the pad I was decamped in, the Florida sunshine flowing through the palm leaves, lithe lizards skittering across the windowsills, and we just went for it. What transpired is They Came Like Swallows, a session we immediately felt should exist as a prayer to the war-torn souls of the families of Palestine continually decimated by the brutality of genocide. We agreed beyond words to offer our music as a sonic activism and as a beneficent energy. This album is our duo-exchange for human dignity, it is our soul music for any semblance of a peaceful planet.”

You can hear the droning, pulsing “Urn Burial,” which opens the album, now. “I had composed and recorded a few pieces at my home studio over the course of a couple weeks. Thurston was spending the winter in South Florida, so I flew down and spent a few days recording his guitar parts in his home there. Watching him spontaneously compose his parts was pretty astonishing, to say the least,” says Kramer. “Once we’d finished working on those pieces, we began improvising and following wherever the music pointed us, and another few pieces were born. We got straight to it, without anything driving us other than the joy of finally working together. My personal goal was to remain present and catch as many surprises as I could from Thurston‘s guitar work, and there were plenty during those few days. We had a blast.”

Listen below.

They Came Like Swallows – Seven Requiems for the Children of Gaza
1. Urn Burial
2. The Redness In The West
3. The Third Migration
4. They Came Like Swallows
5. The Living Theater
6. The Oceans Are Crying
7. Insight