Listening Room | Kim Gordon | The Collective
Deep Dive Music Review
Album Title: The Collective
Artist: Kim Gordon
Release Date: 8 March, 2024
Price: $45-55
Backdrop
The Collective is the second solo album by Kim Gordon, who has been busy since the 2019 release of No Home Record. Not busy on music, but Kim says she’s an artist who makes music and no one complains. Between music, there are books, paintings, drawings, sculptures and collaborations with other musos like J Mascis.
The Collective comes out again on Matador, a relationship Kim has maintained since the final Sonic Youth release in 2009.
The title comes from a novel The Candy House by Jennifer Egan, which I haven't read but a precis of it fits the dystopian future vibe that Kim has created with the sounds in The Collective.
She also used the title earlier in a 2023 exhibition in New York, which art writers say reflected themes of technology and modern life by depicting phone-shaped holes on an abstract canvas.
Kim Gordon, The Collective, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. © Kim Gordon. Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York. Photo: Justin Craun
Back from No Home Record is producer Justin Raisen, who takes us in an entirely new sonic direction not just for Kim but perhaps anyone. I haven't heard anything like The Collective even if researching the album led me to learn the term “trap beats” like it’s normal.
Justin is known for his work with Chalie XCX, Drake, Lil Yaughty among other people I’m aware of in the general zeitgeist, but don’t know in any meaningful way. However his work with John Cale and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, brings him back into my orbit.
The Players
Justin is credited as a writer, multi instrumentalist spanning keyboards and drum programming, as well as mixing, engineering, and production.
Kim has said he would send ideas and she’d add guitar and lyrics and they’d collaborate on arrangements.
Kim writes all the lyrics and plays guitar.
The rest of the personnel are all variations of producers, mixers, engineers, and programmers, with little information about them.
The touring lineup includes Yves Rothman as the music director, Sarah Register on guitar and keys, Emily Retsas on bass, and Sterling Laws on drums.
Yves (Lawrence) Rothman is the co-founder of KRO Records with Justin Raisen. KRO’s YouTube channel describes it as focussing on experimental, genre-blending music, which often includes elements of rock, electronic, pop, funk, and soul.
At the time of writing the web site was down so its current operating status is unknown.
Yves is LA-based and known as “a versatile producer, songwriter, engineer, and instrumentalist,” according to Wikipedia. Yves has been gender fluid since teen years and goes by They/Them pronouns, which we’ll respect coz it’s the decent thing to do.
As a producer they’re as much a vibesy type as much as an engineer knob twirler type. Yves’ “production style is noted for guiding artists to realize their unique sound,” says Wikipedia. Check the link for names you might know, I have no idea.
He’s also an artist, having released eight records since 2013. The baritone speaking style vocals and atmospherics soundscape give Bowie’s Black Star to the max. The comparison is instant and unavoidable since it was so memorable and new for Bowie upon that 2016 release.
I’m not familiar with the others members of the touring lineup because in my 50s and have no idea who’s who since the 90s. So I asked Chat GPT to tell me about the other three members, and rather than paraphrase, I’ll just let it rip:
Sarah Register
Sarah Register is a guitarist and sound engineer with a rich background in the indie and experimental music scenes. She was a member of the noise rock band Talk Normal and has contributed to numerous recordings as both a musician and engineer. Register has worked with artists such as The Shins, David Bowie, and Lou Reed, bringing her expertise to a diverse array of projects.
Emily Retsas
Emily Retsas is a bassist known for her work in both the Los Angeles and Australian music scenes. She has played with acts like Fiona Apple, Phoebe Bridgers, and Shirley Manson. Retsas's style blends technical skill with a deep understanding of various genres, making her a sought-after bassist for both studio sessions and live performances.
Sterling Laws
Sterling Laws is a drummer and percussionist whose versatility spans across genres including rock, jazz, and electronic music. He has toured and recorded with artists such as HAIM, Selena Gomez, and Grace Potter. Laws is known for his dynamic drumming style and ability to adapt to different musical contexts, enhancing the overall sound of any project he is involved with.
These musicians collectively bring a wealth of experience and talent to Kim Gordon's "The Collective" tour, contributing to a robust and dynamic live performance
Thanks for that last line Chat GPT. They do indeed contribute to a killer live performance and there is plenty of it on YouTube. It’s an exciting band to watch and play impossibly cool while looking like they’re having a ball.
Not to minimise anyone, just amplifying what resonated with me watching them live, Emily is a huge contributor working both keys and bass, while Sterling's drums shape the entire sound - especially those cymbals with the holes giving it a corrugated iron smash sound. He also just looks cool AF with the skinny black tie loosened on a messy white dress shirt. A1 for aesthetics fella.
The Experience
Here we go; song by song breakdown.
The rule of a great album in my mind is not to fuck around and make us wait to find out. Give it to us on track 1 and BYE BYE - yeah all caps - is a hot diggity head bangeroony mind fuck.
The drums drive a muffled beat as this warpy squelchy sound overlays it and just before your brain explodes Kim’s ice cool droll deadpans you with…wait, a shopping list? A To Do list? Is she going away? What are these lyrics? Is this dementia in action as she remembers all the things to remember all the things.
Just as you’re buying in the hack hype that a 70 year old woman has allegedly written the most illin’ hip hop album of forever, she’s hitting us with a packing list.
The guitar is hardcore industrial buzzsaw. Possibly literally. I actually don’t know if it’s a musical instrument or just a recorded loop of some factory machinery. If she said they stuck a mic in an air turbine at Boeing and mixed it with a lawn mower deep in the LA suburbs on a Saturday morning, I’d say ‘sounds legit’.
Bonafide Hit. Tik Tok says so too.
The Candy House has a haunting melody over explosions and underwater gunshots and squeaking industrial machines struggling because some workers leg got stuck in it and the pain is all around us. This is straight up horror movie music. Like Saw and Hostel meets Zombies and Vampires.
When I Don’t Miss My Mind starts I can barely tell it apart from The Candy House as the menacing nails down the chalk board seems to continue.
There’s lots of imagery of urban landscapes - like someone is navigating it and narrating a disjointed inner monologue that might be demented.
Listening to it feels like you’re in a darkened room with strobe lights waiting for the serial killer to go to work. Kim tells you to “Suck It Up”, then turns on you with “Fuck It Up”, like it’s a command to that serial killer who doesn’t miss their mind and is about to remove yours.
The keyboard has elephant trumpet vibes. Despite this, Hit.
I’m A Man….gives Me Too man hater. It’s an incel pile on. No one likes Toxic Masculinity except those guys who benefit. No one like incels who are entitled and bitter and manifest their failures with whining and women hating while longing for their undivided attention because ‘I’m A Man’.
In this song we’re namechecking big trucks, a lack of education, lack of ability to get a date or bring home enough money, and having lost their way, shedding fear by cross dressing and having “lost my way” because there’s something to hide. The constant refrain of “I’m A Man” has a subtext of entitlement rather than a healthy celebration of mascule pride; and repeating “It’s Not My” Fault gives a lack of accountability vibes in the context of the overall hostility toward ‘Man’.
Hard one for any men raising young boys. Yes these males referenced in the song are Trumpian and Tate-ish. Yes they suck and are the worst. Bashing the entire gender is about as acceptable and useful as if a man wrote this about women. Better to write about the attributes than cast it as a gender issue in an era where gender is hotly debated and confusing for young minds.
The tune rocks, it’s a Hit, and is entirely hypocritical in its white women privilege.
Oof, looks like the song triggered me. Has brought out the Protecter in me as someone with a young boy and who is tired of toxic influences and the lazy bashing of All Men - he just doesn't need to constantly hear that all males are beneath contempt - even if I agree that Trump-Tate-Petersen-Rogan style men are massive arseholes. Making that persona All Men is like saying every white woman is a Karen.
Trophies is a muddy sound drenched in reverb and distortion. And it’s about Bowling, and bowling trophies. But in a sexualised way with talk about slipping fingers in holes and a chorus purporting to shout Strike Strike Strike but sounds an awful lot like Suck Suck Suck, even though a verse makes a big point about “dont go down on your knees” coz “it aint worth it”.
Hit, because you chant Suck Suck Suck.
It’s Dark Inside is like if a song was coming out of the TV when the little girl is watching Poltergeist. There’s almost no structure to the song that is spoken word accompanied by dark atmospheric sounds punctuated by beats so sychopated they're often in a different bar by the time they’re bombed like a beach ball in a pit of toxic sludge. This is the Art song.
Psychedelic Orgasm is my kind of organsm. Two words I like and putting them together puts me onboard with whatever’s going on in this space.
But there’s nothing to get onboard here. This is more of the same from It’s Dark Inside. No structure. Spoken word over atmosphrics and this part of the album is either an interlude or showing the album has run out of ideas. The shock is the contrast to having just ate up five bangers in a row before hitting the mess of It’s Dark Inside. Ok, it can be an Art song.
Tree House continues the pace set by the previous two tracks, snippets of life pop out in the lyrics - “driving in a sports car”. The sounds are dark clangs, buzzsaws, terrorising drones, pipes being hit with spanners. Another Art song that takes the block of Art Farts to three in a row.
Shelf Warmer drones on hauntingly and keeps a pace. It has some kind of discernible song structure for the listener. I don't want anyone to think I know aout song structure beyond the average person, I just mean it moves along whereas the other three seem to float like mist. Kim is whispering about being a Gift Shop. We’ll call this a Fan song.
The Believers pulses forward with a little 5 note melody that sounds like its played out on iron smelting equipment. The chorus-ish bit where Kim croons ‘Of course I’m a Believer’ sounds like someone caught out having their inner thoughts read as they seek to confirm to an inquisitor that they still believe. In what, we aren't sure, hopefully not the Christo-Fascism gripping western democracies at this time. There is noise. Lots of noise, with the back half of the song like it’s in another song altogether, before bringing it back to the iron smelt melody. Its a Fan song.
Dream Dollar turns in to a song half way through while telling us to “cement the brand”. There seems to be a lot of commentary on how capitalism is shaping us to be our own brand, which people have been led to believe is monetising your essence but has instead come to be entirely dehumanising. It’s an Art song even though “cement the brand” nearly puts into Fan song territory, it just seems to have no structure and I need song structure.
The Fit
The Collection builds on sounds and directions set in No Home Record, but this one seems to hold together more completely. The sound is more consistent even if exhausting in parts. The lyrical themes seem bound by the fragmentation of technology’s effect on the social fabric of democracy and our humanity; the culture and gender wars that permeate social and right wing media; the broken politics that is exploiting everyone for gain by narrow casting to base desires; and an inescapable feeling of our march into dystopia.
The packaging is functional at best, basic and disappointing to collectors. I have a full packaging review here.
Critics and Charts
We have a metacritic score of 84 based on 18 reviews. It’s an understatement to say the big guns of music writing were giddy with praise. Mojo, Record Collector, NME, Rolling Stone, All Music, Classic Rock Magazine and Uncut giving it 80; Pitchfork bring some strong love at 85; and miserly haters at The Observer flipping the bird with 40. Ok Boomer.
Notable chart positions reflect the early and late days of Sonic Youth with strong sales in Australia Vinyl Albums (peaking at 15) and the UK Independent Albums (6).
Official Albums chart peak at 37, and Vinyl Albums at 9.
All the bits:
Hit Songs (Radio Friendly Unit Shifters. Claps, taps, pumps and stomps for anyone with a pulse)
BYE BYE, The Candy House, I Don’t Miss My Mind, I’m A Man, Trophies
Fan Songs (Values Vibes for fans)
Shelf Warmer, The Believers
Artist Expression (Songs are a gift and artists are Free-to-Be)
It’s Dark Inside, Psychedelic Orgasm, Tree House
Final Word: The Collective is an album of the year contender. The sound breaks ground and the themes are on point for reflecting the zeitgeist. It does feel like it runs out of steam in the middle and only comes back mildly in the end. It’s an album where you listen to the first five songs alot and convince yourself the album is brilliant even though the back half is middling, without focus, and abrasively challenging at times.
Rating: 7/10