Tag: SONIC YOUTH

An eclectic combination of dense beats, brooding basslines, grinding reverb and spoken word, renowned musician and visual artist Kim Gordon has shared her new single, ‘BYE BYE’. The track serves as an introduction to her newly announced second solo record, The Collective, which is set for release on 8th March via Matador Records.

Following on from her 2019 debut solo album No Home Record, on The Collective, Gordon has retained her idiosyncratic style, remaining as curious, eclectic and ambiguous across each of the eleven tracks. Recorded in Los Angeles, Gordon continued to collaborate with producer Justin Raisen (Lil Yachty, John Cale, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Charli XCX, Yves Tumor) on the new record, with additional production from Anthony Paul Lopez. Together, they have captured a rumbling, intoxicating sense of unease which is translated both sonically and visually – something which permeates new cut ‘BYE BYE’.

Accompanied by a video directed by photographer and filmmaker Clara Balzary, and starring Gordon’s daughter Coco Gordon Moore, ‘BYE BYE’ is an exciting preview of what’s to come from a musician who immerses herself wholly into all of her creations. The track and album also accompanied by words from English artist Josephine Pryde, who offers poetic context to Gordon’s debut and upcoming solo record:

“There was a space in Kim Gordon’s No Home Record. It might not have been a home and it might not have been a record, but I seem to recall there was a space. Boulevards, bedrooms, instruments were played, recorded, the voice and its utterances, straining a way through the rhythms and the chords, threaded in some shared place, we met there, the guitar came too, there fell a peal of cymbals, driving on the music. We listened, we turned our back to the walls, slithered through the city at night. Kim Gordon’s words in our ears, her eyes, she saw, she knew, she remembered, she liked. We were moving somewhere. No home record. Moving.

Now I’m listening to The Collective. And I’m thinking, what has been done to this space, how has she treated it, it’s not here the same way, not quite. I mean, not at all. On this evidence, it splintered, glittered, crashed and burned. It’s dark here… Haunted by synthesised voices bodiless. Planes of projections. Mirrors get your gun and the echo of a well-known tune, comes in liminal, yet never not hanging around, part of the atmosphere, fading in and out, like she says – Grinding at the edges. Grinding at us all, grinding us away. Hurting, scraping. Sediments, layers, of recorded emissions, mined, twisted, refracted. That makes the music. This shimmering, airless geology, agitated, quarried, cries made in data, bounced down underground tunnels, reaching our ears. We recalled it – but not as a memory, more like how you recall a product, when it’s flawed…

…I would say that Kim Gordon is thinking about how thinking is, now. Conceptual artists do that, did that. “I Don’t Miss My Mind.” The record opens with a list, but the list is under the title “BYE BYE.” The list says milk thistle, dog sitter…. And much more. She’s leaving. Why is the list anxious? How divisive is mascara? It’s on the list. I am packing, listening to the list. Is it mine, or hers. She began seeking images from behind her closed eyes. Putting them to music. But I need to keep my eyes open as I walk the streets, with noise cancelled by the airbuds rammed in my ears. quiet, aware, quiet, aware, they chant at me. What could be going through Kim’s head as she goes through mine?”

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Photo Credit: Danielle Neu

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut