Since Sonic Youth’s abrupt 2011 split, Kim Gordon has chosen an uncompromising path. This should hardly be surprising; her abrasive vocals were always among the most challenging elements within the group’s avant-rock arsenal. But along with writing an unsparing memoir, Girl in a Band, and refocusing a hitherto sidelined visual art career, Gordon has also embraced ambient improvisation with Bill Nace as Body/Head, teamed up with surfer Alex Knost as abstract noisers Glitterbust, and combined acerbic blank verse with loops, basslines and feedback for her debut solo album, 2019’s No Home Record. Reliving past glories is, it seems, not her style.
The Covid-enforced delay in taking No Home Record on the road has clearly given Gordon a chance to live within these songs, and for her new band to flesh out their antagonistic grooves. While much of No Home Record’s power lay in its starkness, Gordon’s band – guitarist Sarah Register, bassist Camilla Charlesworth and drummer Madison Vogt – add a chaotic, human energy to the machine music. Chugging like a no-wave jam band, they locate a dark, swaggering punk-rock within Air BnB, then glower subtly as elemental drum machines rattle like trap music on Paprika Pony.
