A funny thing happened on the way to reviewing Kim Gordon’s third solo record. Because of the somewhat treacherous DSP this reviewer endures, the protected stream was crippled by digital dropouts, glitchery, buffering, overmodulation, you name it. After rebooting, refreshing and revisiting the apparatus, listening to PLAY ME (Matador) felt like a bonus remix. This is not a pejorative statement.
There’s no denying Gordon’s bona fides (disheveled noise-rocker, riot-grrl signal amplifier, fashion designer, unvarnished solo artist, cultural commentator), but none of that really prepares you for PLAY ME’s jarring, juddering audio verite. On the follow-up to the twice Grammy-nominated The Collective, Gordon has doubled-down on everything. The dozen tracks apply hip-hop’s pickpocketed beats, punk’s abuse of equipment and IDM’s itchy, digital abrasion to her vocal performances, making for a tightly wound listening experience so epileptic that all the hyperpop kids should sell their laptops and matriculate to trade schools.
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At any given moment, Gordon’s sing-speak Sprechgesang of catchphrases, commands, Post-It note poetry and cultural keywords (“Bye Bye 25!”) comes off clipped, desperate, laconic, near-death, dominating, erotic, craven, jaded, resigned, empowered. Captivating. The most remotely linear moment here, “Not Today,” feels like a fractured love song with an implied fatalist ending. Gordon and producer Justin Raisen are the architects of a twitching underworld where the buildings are made of cascading scrolls of zeroes and ones, the dirt and grime glimmers with powdered glass and Alan Vega’s profile is printed on all the city’s money.
When discussing his decidedly challenging work, avant-garde composer John Cage once wrote, “You needn’t call it ‘music’ if the term offends you.” You’re probably too square to listen to PLAY ME. It’s OK — Gordon understands. And still doesn’t care.
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