Kim Gordon: No Home Record (Matador/digital outlets)

 |   |  1 min read

Air BnB
Kim Gordon: No Home Record (Matador/digital outlets)
Points go on the board immediately for Kim Gordon with this debut under her own name after the collapse of Sonic Youth.

This starts with a broody, discordant clash of sonics and electro-crunch on Sketch Artist as she menaces close to the mic for an unsettling, industrial mood-setter beamed in from Eraserhead or some collapsing, future technology.

When she follows that with what sounds like prepared guitar on Air BnB – and the declamatory Murdered Out later – this is an angry lo-fi threat which at times hints at the Ciccone Youth project (think March of the Ciccone Robots turned up to 11) filtered through very early Sonic Youth's trash-pop aesthetic.

There are breathing space songs here: “Songs”? Let's just stick with “breathing space” passages for the dark Paprika Pony or the personal Earthquake.

But hitch Gordon's raw and distorted or monochrome, dispassionate delivery to damaged electronics (Cookie Butter), massive bass on Don't Play It and clanking atmospherics (Get Yr Life Back at the end) then . . . 

Anyone who has read her wounded but empowering autobiography Girl in A Band will know where she is coming from in a couple of places, for the rest of you buckle in for a bumpy ride through her take on the dystopian present.

This is a car skidding on its burning rims down a gravel side road through the long night and heading to a place where experimentalism and No Wave pop collide head on.

Some will find it unlistenable.

Elsewhere thinks it is abrasively good.

You can hear Kim Gordon's No Home Record on Spotify here.


Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Tobin Sprout: Empty Horses (Fire/Southbound/digital outlets)

Tobin Sprout: Empty Horses (Fire/Southbound/digital outlets)

Photo-realist painter Tobin Sprout is perhaps best known for being a key member of Ohio's Guided by Voices alongside Robert Pollard but also ran a solo music career, especially after he left the... > Read more

Patron Saint of Hummingbirds: Environmental Music Vol 2 (digital outlets)

Patron Saint of Hummingbirds: Environmental Music Vol 2 (digital outlets)

Elsewhere is not averse to ambient or atmospheric music, or even that stateless music which seems designed for relaxation massage centres. When we are writing something which requires concentration... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Ken Emerson: Slack and Steel Kaua'i Style (2007)

Ken Emerson: Slack and Steel Kaua'i Style (2007)

A few years ago when I was on the island of Kaua'i in the Hawaiian chain I went into a CD store in the pretty town of Hanalei on the north east coast. I was looking for some compilations of classic... > Read more

EPs by Yasmin Brown

EPs by Yasmin Brown

With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run thisoccasional column by the informed and opinionated Yasmin Brown. She will scoop up some of those many EP releases, in... > Read more