The former Sonic Youth alt-rock icon has become a genuine It-woman of contemporary art-pop cool with her exhilarating solo work. It’s unbelievable that it’s now 10 years since her first solo single “Murdered Out”, when she began her work with producer Justin Raisen, but not such a surprise that her peerless noise-core post-modern deconstructions of contemporary life have struck a chord in disjointed times. After her single “BYE BYE” went viral a couple of years ago and bagged a couple of Grammy nominations, there is much excitement around forthcoming album “Play Me”. With good reason: early listens confirm a cacophony of sound and critique that only she can pull off. The Madonna of the Underground will be speaking again.
Kim Gordon’s vision of art and noise has come sharper into focus just as readily as it has changed—a paradigm of possibility that, four decades on, still feels like a dare. The adventure continues on the artist’s third solo album, “Play Me“, released by Matador Records.
“Play Me” is distilled and immediate, expanding Gordon’s sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautrock. “We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says of her continued collaboration with LA producer Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira, Yves Tumor). “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.”
In 2019, Gordon’s debut solo LP “No Home Record” proved she was attuned as ever to vanguard sounds, mixing avant-rap and footwork into her sonic conceptual art. The Collective, in 2024, was brick-heavy and even more daring, led by the tectonic industrial clatter of her packing-list-cum-rage-rap banger ‘BYE BYE’ and earning two Grammy nominations.
The fast-following “Play Me” processes, in Gordon’s inimitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill-vibes flattening of culture – where dark humour voices the absurdity of modern life. But despite its frequent outward gaze, “Play Me” is an interior record, one in which a heightened emotionality pulses through physical jams, rejecting definitive statements in favour of an inquisitiveness that keeps Gordon searching, ever in process.
Taken from the album “Play Me”, out March 13th on Matador Records
The Fat Angel Sings 