After decades of pushing the boundaries of punk rock with her enormously influential band Sonic Youth as well as creating challenging and renowned works as a visual artist, perhaps the most radical statement Kim Gordon could make at this point is to release an album with only her name written down the spine. Released today on Matador records, Gordon’s first solo album, “No Home Record,” is nine songs that represent an artist truly unbound by preconceptions. From the first sonic blasts of the industrial-tinged “Sketch Artist,” the record practically begs you to form an opinion before it goes off balance with each song that follows. It’s similar to that feeling when you exit the bumper cars at a carnival and are happy the seat belts worked yet immediately want to go again.
“It was sort of an experiment for me just to see what it could be,” – Kim Gordon on ‘No Home Record’
Kim Gordon. Photo: Natalie Mantini
When I spoke with Gordon over the phone, she explained that the record had come about after randomly meeting with producer Justin Raisen, who has worked with Charli XCX, Angel Olsen and Ariel Pink. To her recollection, working on a record with Raisen just seemed like something fun to do in between art shows and her work in the avant-garde duo Body/Head with musician Bill Nace.
“I didn’t really think about it that much,” Gordon says of the project coming to fruition. “I wasn’t that busy at the time. It started when I accidentally met Justin, who was trying to get me to come over and sing on this other project. He kept sending me stuff. I was kind of skeptical and curious. So finally he sent me a piece of music that I thought I could do vocals on and add to what was already there. I did that and he took some leftover bits and put some trashy drums on it and bass to it. He sent it back to me and it was kind of trashy and cool.”
After Gordon added some guitar parts and the recording was mixed, that song turned out to be one of the central tracks on the album, “Murdered Out.” From there, this kind of spontaneous workflow energized Gordon and she was ready to focus on what would become “No Home Record.”
“It was sort of an experiment for me just to see what it could be,” explains Gordon. “Justin is sort of positive about everything. It was almost like a challenge [to say] ‘make something out of this mother f–ker!’ I knew that with his expertise as a producer, that’s what you want him to do, elevate what you do. I thought it was interesting to take things that were improv and shape them into a song.”
The album teeters between beat-heavy industrial tracks as well as the Lower East Side No-Wave inspired punk Gordon helped create with Sonic Youth. All throughout, Gordon muses on the modern malaise of this current era and the devaluation of the creative spirit on the biting track, “Don’t Play It Back.” In that song, she delivers puzzle pieces of free associated poetry on how artistic expression is being taken for granted. “I used to have a gallery,” she sings, “Now it’s just a floor shop. I hope the world don’t turn away.”
“It really captures a feeling of being at a coffee place or something and hearing different bits of conversations,” Gordon explains of the track. “It’s about gentrification and the ideas around ‘are we really free’ and the illusions of choice.”
For Gordon, the thought that anyone would ever pay her to express herself creatively had never entered her mind when she was initially starting out. Art on the fringes was what seemed the most alive and rewarding at the time and it still is today.
“I started [in punk rock in the Lower East Side] because I thought it was more pure and free than the art world at the time in the 80s which was having a big commercial boon. No-Wave music, which inspired me, seemed more like a form of expression and nobody thought of it as commercial,” says Gordon.
As of right now, there are no plans to tour behind “No Home Record” until at least 2020. While she wasn’t busy with art shows before, Gordon is now currently working on a new collection that will keep her busy throughout the rest of the year.
“I have a show now that I have to work on that opens in January,” she says. “So after that, I’ll start putting a band together and that kind of thing.”
