Kim Gordon on Streaming

As a founding member of Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon has been part of the music scene for decades. Now in her 70s, she speaks candidly to Resident Advisor about the modern music scene, streaming and more. She covers the influence of Hip-hop, how she doesn't listen to contemporary music, her thoughts on politics and masculinity, as well as her time in Sonic Youth. She has a new album out in March, which is her third solo album, entitled PLAY ME via Matador Records. Pre order her new album here.

 

Here's more form the video...

For over four decades, Kim Gordon has navigated the edges where fine art meets noise. Her claim to fame was as a founding member of Sonic Youth, the band that took the nihilistic, abrasive energy of New York's no wave scene and forged it into a new language for rock.
 
After Sonic Youth's public breakup in 2011, Gordon returned to her original creative practice: visual art. But in recent years, she has undergone a staggering creative transformation that's led her back to music. At 72--an age when most legends are content with the heritage circuit--she has instead dived headlong into the sounds of the present: industrial electronics, Chicago footwork and the blown-out low-end of SoundCloud rap.

Aiming to break with her Sonic Youth legacy, Gordon released her first two solo albums, No Home Record and The Collective, in 2019 and 2024, respectively. And now, she's back with her third LP: PLAY ME. Working alongside producer Justin Raisen, she uses beat-oriented frameworks to interrogate what she calls the "tyranny of frictionless culture." From naming Spotify playlists in her lyrics to donating proceeds to reproductive rights, her work remains a vital, confrontational critique of late capitalism and technocratic fascism.

In this RA Exchange, Gordon discusses the process of moving closer to solo work, as well as the masculinity of rock; her evolving relationship with electronic music; the politics of the "body;" and why, after thinking she was done with music, she keeps getting pulled back in. 

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