Listen to Thurston Moore’s stripped-down cover of Leave Me Alone
12-string acoustic guitar swirls dominate his take on the New Order classic.
Thurston Moore has released a folksy cover of New Order’s 1983 classic, Leave Me Alone.
There’s not much of the former Sonic Youth man’s signature heavy riffs in this cover – The track opens with swells supplied by 12-string acoustic guitars before Moore jumps in with airy vocals. Droning guitar sounds can also be heard towards the song’s climax.
In an interview with The Quietus, Moore revealed that he was inspired to cover New Order during a residency with the artist Radieux Radio in Salford, UK. Radieux had the “original cassette” of New Order’s Power, Corruption And Lies, and was playing Leave Me Alone. “Radieux kept almost ritually rewinding the cassette and playing this song over and over until it was lodged in our brains,” said Moore.
The cover was eventually recorded with a few local musicians. “Salford is the only place I would dare cover a New Order song, with local musicians and local pints. It was just one of those rare occasions, where something I wouldn’t normally do was done just for fun, and in homage and respect to the place,” recalled Moore.
Moore’s cover of Leave Me Alone will be the B-side to a series of upcoming seven-inch records – Pollination, Swing Swells and Three Graces: Alice Moki Jayne – arriving on 8 November. These comprise excerpts snipped from the Thurston Moore Group’s 2019 concerts. The band also has their sights set on a triple-CD box set, Spirit Counsel, which arrives 21 September.
Listen to Moore’s cover of Leave Me Alone above.
For more music news, click here.