Kim Gordon – PLAY ME (Matador) (13th Floor Album Review)
Former Sonic Youth Kim Gordon has just released her third solo album, PLAY ME…the 13th Floor’s Jeff Neems gives it a spin…
One of the more obscure and unusual albums in my music collection is 1989’s The Whitey Album by the largely unknown Ciccone Youth.
A weird mash-up of fuzzy guitars, spoken word, rapping and very basic drum machine beats, it veers wildly from intense instrumental jams to thoughtful utterances over Kraftwerk-esque rhythms.
Ciconne Youth was, in fact, a brief side project for Sonic Youth, aided and abetted by Mike Watt (fIREHOUSE, Minutemen) and my guy J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr).
The voice of Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon dominates that record, and my first listen to her latest album PLAY ME had me immediately reminiscing about my first exposure to The Whitey Album more than 30 years ago.
There’s no doubt whatsoever Kim Gordon is an icon, and arguably the coolest woman in rock. Here, on her third solo album, she blends her drawling voice with a series of very contemporary beats – a slow hip hop style head-nodder to open, some dubtsep-adjacent bits and pieces, and other drum machine breaks which sound like they’re very much for the alternative and arty 21st dancefloor.
I can actually imagine some uber-cool hipster DJ sliding these cuts into a DJ set in places like New York, where Kim Gordon found fame, London, Milan or Auckland. Hell, if a vinyl copy found its way into my hands I’d been inclined to sling it into m Friday night selection, too.
Because Kim Gordon actually pulls this off. It works, in a surprisingly good way.
Admittedly, I am not running out to buy this on vinyl – not quite funky, soulful or ghetto enough for me – but in an era when a lot of electronic musicians are more interested in social media numbers and Spotify streams, the queen of alt-rock is still keeping it very real and very raw.
A footnote. I am a huge Sonic Youth fan and a small part of me cries for the fact they are never likely to reform and tour due to Kim Gordon’s acrimonious split from life and musical partner Thurston Moore.
Jeff Neems
PLAY ME is out now on Matador Records
