Dig into new jams from Kim Gordon, Opeth, Lillie Mae, Lightning Bolt, and more!
The Sonic Youth icon treads new ground with her first solo albumāthe āaccidentallyā created No Home Record.
This has been a year of firsts for Kim Gordon. From Kim Gordon: Lo-Fi Glamour, her first solo art exhibition at a North American museum (the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, no less), to No Home Record, her first-ever solo album, she continues to break new ground, even at age 66. Which is saying something, as sheās already spent 30+ years as a primal force in one of the most influential indie-rock bands on the planet. As bassist, co-songwriter, and sometimes vocalist and guitarist for the legendary Sonic Youth, Gordon logged 16 studio albumsāincluding seminal post-punk/noise-rock works EVOL, Daydream Nation, Goo, and Dirtyāsix live albums, nine EPs, and a mind-boggling array of experimental/instrumental releases on the bandās Sonic Youth Recordings label, not to mention official bootlegs, tribute performances, and soundtrack contributions. Of course, there were all the attendant world tours, magazine interviews, and television appearances, too.
Viewed in that light, perhaps it should be no surprise Gordon continues to push the envelopeāeven if her new album wasnāt even intentional. At least not at first. āI just really hadnāt thought of doing a solo record, but I kind of accidentally did some work with Justin,ā she admits with a chuckle.
Sheās referring to Justin Raisen, her primary collaborator and producer on No Home Record. āJustin had another project that he wanted me to sing on and, eventually, he sent me something that I thought, āOkay, I could make lyrics for this and add to it.ā And that came out pretty good.ā That project was singer-songwriter Lawrence Rothmanās 2016 single āDesigner Babies.ā Afterward, āJustin was just always, like, āIf you ever want to record some more or whateverā¦.āā
Raisen, however, seemed to have a plan. The producerāwhoās carved out a name for himself working with notable artists such as Charli XCX , John Cale, Ariel Pink, and Angel Olsenāgently coaxed new music out of Gordon by way of the Rothman session. For starters, he took leftover bits of Gordonās vocal performance from āDesigner Babiesā and edited them together with what she calls a ātrashy drumbeatā and sent it along to see what she thought.
āI really liked it,ā she recalls. āSo, I went back and did more vocals and added some guitar and that became āMurdered Out.āā Originally released as a single in 2016 but also the fourth track on No Home Record, this meditation on Los Angeles car cultureāwhich is powered by a hooky, danceable groove by Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawaāwas a definite musical departure for Gordon. Itās also the first song ever released solely under her name. Perhaps because it was so different for her, musically speaking, āMurdered Outā also functioned as the catalyst for making a full LP. āIt just kind of happened, slowly. It wasnāt a really big, premeditated thing, like, āOoh, I want to do a solo record,ā you know?ā
Perhaps the fact that Gordon hadnāt been plotting a solo record since the 2011 demise of Sonic Youth shouldnāt be too much of a surprise, either. The bandās breakup was monumental in and of itself. That it coincided with, and was admittedly a casualty of, the dissolution of her 27-year marriage to cofounding guitarist Thurston Moore, made it even more so. Sonic Youth wasnāt just another band. Sure, Gordon and Moore were the darling couple of indie rock, but they (along with cofounding guitarist Lee Ranaldo) were also musical trendsettersānow-iconic pioneers of a sound, attitude, and work ethic that were a pivotal influence on alternative music movements of the 1980s and 1990s. From their earliest albumsāincluding their 1982 debut on Glenn Brancaās Neutral record label, ā83ās Confusion Is Sex, and ā85ās Bad Moon Risingāthe bandās sound was an eclectic, electric combination born of the New York experimental no wave art and music scene. The three founding membersā use of alternate tunings, prepared guitars, feedback, and noise, literally transformed the way people listened to rock music. By the time Sonic Youth released 1990ās Goo, the bandās major-label debut on Geffenāwhich included the hit song āKool Thing,ā featuring Public Enemyās Chuck Dātheyād become theĀ bona fide rock stars of the alt music scene.
To consider that Gordon might need some time to process these shifts in her personal and professional lives is reasonable. In reality, however, Gordon responded by delving into the visual arts. Her She Bites Her Tender MindĀ exhibit showed at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin until November this year, and Lo-Fi GlamourĀ ran from May to September this year, as well. She also wrote the 2015 memoir Girl in a Band, and cofounded the experimental, improv-based duo Body/HeadĀ with guitarist Bill Nace. Additionally, she moved back to her birthplace, Los Angeles, after several decades on the East Coast.
Is No Home Record the cumulative result of all these life changes and subsequent creative pursuits? While it does seem to perfectly reflect the zeitgeist, it also represents a personal evolution, bringing all aspects of Gordonās multidisciplinary creativity together under one roof. Her preferred minimalist aestheticāwhich permeates both her visual art and much of her bass playing in Sonic Youthāis adeptly channeled into the sparsely layered songwriting on No Home Record, a title that takes its cue from influential French-Belgian avant-garde director Chantal Akermanās film, No Home Movie. Interestingly, whether itās an intentional connection to the film or not, thereās a visual, cinematic element to the record as much as there is an aural one. Thereās also an interesting collision of past musical influences, contemporary production paradigms, and present-day social observations on No Home Record. Songs like āHungry Babyā draw on proto-punk elements of the Stooges, while āCookie Butterā comingles with hip-hop, using the insistent nature of the tuneās drum loop to maximum effect. āAir BnBā melds Arto Lindsay/DNA-style noise-rock and guitar histrionics with lyrics inspired by a fascination with the bourgeois aesthetic of Airbnb listings. As Elaine Kahn writes in No Home Recordās liner notes:
āDespite the exhaustive nature of her rĆ©sumĆ©, the most reliable aspect of Gordonās music may be its resistance to formula. Songs discover themselves as they unspool, each one performing a test of the mediumās possibilities and limits. Her command is astonishing, but Gordonās artistic curiosity remains the guiding force behind her music.ā
There are other collaborators on No Home Record, including Shawn Everett (Jim James, Alabama Shakes) and Jake Meginsky (Lāappel Du Vide), but Raisen deftly curates it all, creating a continuity between the songs that contributes to the albumās storytelling scope. PGĀ caught up with Gordon while she was on vacation, shortly after an appearance at the Warhol Museum for the conclusion of her Lo-Fi GlamourĀ exhibit. The conversation was candid yet contemplated, sparse but revelatory, and occasionally interrupted by a bit of laughter.
Tidbit: No Home Recordās title is a nod to French-Belgian director Chantal Akermanās No Home Movie, a 2015 documentary about Akermanās mother, who was an Auschwitz survivor.
How did your No Home RecordĀ collaborations with Justin Raisen work? Did you give him material to work with beforehand, or were you crafting the songs together in the studio?
In some instances, I gave him materials to see what he would do, and then, on other songs, we built them in the studio. Before I actually thought I could work with him, I worked with Shawn Everett, another super-busy dude who kind of fit me in on his day off. Then, as it turned out, Justin had some time so we just kind of worked it that way. Iād never worked with a producer that way, so that was kind of interesting to me.
Your songs often sound somewhat improvised. How do you manage to maintain the spontaneity of your style within the structure of what a recording studio offers, or maybe even demands?
Well, a lot of it wasĀ improvised in the studio, but there are some things that are more straightforward. Pretty much every song was different. There are a couple songs where I recorded stuff at another studio and then sent it to Justin, like āSketch Artistā and āGet Yr Life Back.ā
Do the songs ultimately turn out the way you envision them, or do they morph as you navigate your way through the recording process?
I think āSketch Artistā is probably the most different from what it started out as. But āAir BnB,ā that was something that was an homage to Arto Lindsayās guitar playing. So Iād play Justin different no wave songs to get the sense of rhythm that I was looking for, and he would have somebody play the drums, and then I did the guitar and then the vocalsāmaybe the bass would be last. They were all different.
āCookie Butterā has a really cool groove to it. Did you come up with that?
āCookie Butter,ā which I did with Shawn, was based around a ā70s drum machine I borrowed from [Beastie Boys engineer] Mario Caldato Jr. Iād been fooling around at my house with that, adding guitar loops and stuff. I took that over to Shawn and we got good sounds for one of the rhythms and laid that down. Then I just had this idea of a two-part structure, and on the second part I just went for it on guitarāand maybe I did a second take of it. So it was kind of improvisedāit starts out that way, but then gets kind of reined in or structured.
Although the vision was there, the budget wasn't.
Los Angeles, CA (September 11, 2019) -- Kim Gordon has released āAir BnB,ā the new single and its accompanying āvideoā from her forthcoming debut solo album, No Home Record, out October 11th on Matador Records. A towering rock track that launches from brittle, noise-bitten verses evoking āblue towels and water bottlesā and ā47-inch flat TVā into an explosive, defiantly-catchy mantra ā āAir BnBā is an exhilarating tour de force and unlikely anthem for the hospitality gig economy.
āAir BnBā follows first single āSketch Artistā, and its accompanying Loretta Fahrenholz-directed video, both of which were met with critical acclaim. In addition, yesterday SXSW announced Gordon as the Keynote Speaker for the 2020 Music Conference.
No Home Record's tracklist also includes Gordonās 2016 critically lauded single āMurdered Out,ā about which Pitchfork noted: "'Murdered Out,' the first song sheās released under her own name, offers another vantage on the inexhaustibility of her sound. The single doesnāt just free her from old band names, it also gives Gordon new textures to work with."
Since co-founding the legendary Sonic Youth in the early 80ās, Kim Gordon has remained at the nexus of music, fashion, art and (more recently) books and film. In the past few years alone, Gordon has debuted in the #1 spot on the NY Times Bestseller List with her 2015 memoir Girl In A Band, acted alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Jonah Hill under the direction of Gus Van Sant (in 2018ās āDonāt Worry, He Wonāt Get Far On Footā), released music and performed as one half of Body/Head alongside Bill Nace, and opened multiple solo-exhibitions at internationally renowned museums.
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