Kim Gordon - PLAY ME

Those unaccustomed to Kim Gordon’s solo work might be reaching to check they’ve pressed play on the right thing. While best known for co-fronting slacker-rock antiheroes Sonic Youth, she’s ploughed a very different path since the group folded. ‘PLAY ME’ - Kim’s third album in a decade with producer Justin Raisen - kicks off with a dusty, swaggering groove and lazy lounge brass, more West Coast G-funk than NYC garage fuzz.

Throughout, the vibe is characterised by glitchy beats and abrasive sounds, heavily leaning into hip hop and trap. Justin’s production is fidgety and restless; a smash-and-grab collage of random snippets - stark 808s and sampled snatches of conversation - as if frenetically doomscrolling with an idle flick of the finger.

Apparently, that’s Dave Grohl behind the kit on ‘Busy Bee’, trading blows with an old school drum machine - though you’d be hard pressed to tell; his dirgey, loping beat is cut up and distorted beyond recognition. Elsewhere, the bowel-shuddering kick drum on ‘Sub Con’ is so dubby that only whales could appreciate its low-end majesty.

There’s plenty of bravado and very little melody. Every utterance of Kim’s hushed, husky voice is a drawn-out sigh, as if contemplating if it’s really worth the effort. ‘Girl with a Look’ finds her back on (slightly) more familiar territory - a scuzzy, lo-fi stoner racket, albeit exploring a wider palette of textures.

Trump-baiting closer, ‘ByeBye25!’ (an update on the Grammy-nominated ‘ByeBye’) reels off the POTUS’s ‘banned terms’ like a shopping list: Mexicans, immigrants, transgender, climate change, peanut allergy… surreal, chilling but compelling.

Often, it’s hard to tell whether it’s not all just a big wind-up. But maybe that’s the point. Here, Kim Gordon effectively reflects the absurdity of the times, without claiming to offer a solution.