Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Air BnB
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.
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