11 March 2024

Former Sonic Youth icon KIM GORDON has launched
her 2nd solo album, titled The Collective.

Press info: Recorded in Gordon’s native Los Angeles, The Collective follows her 2019 debut LP No Home Record and continues her collaboration with producer Justin Raisen (Lil Yachty, John Cale, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Charli XCX, Yves Tumor), with additional production from Anthony Paul Lopez. The album advances their joint world building, with Raisin’s damaged, blown out dub and trap constructions playing the foil to Gordon’s intuitive word collages and hooky mantras, which conjure communication, commercial sublimation and sensory overload.

Album artwork

The Guardian (UK newspaper): “The former Sonic Youth bassist’s follow-up to her acclaimed solo debut has some great moments, but tips over into a barrage of distortion… Unfortunately, Gordon’s spiky, staccato delivery is too often drowned in distortion and diminished by tune-dodging cacophony. Perhaps the risk of making music that sounds so close to the edge is that sometimes you fall off. Hopefully she’ll try again soon though.” Score: 4/10.

Pitchfork: “The cacophonous, vexing, endlessly fascinating The Collective represents the experience of logging off and finding that your perception of the real world has been forever altered” Score: 8.5/10

Live in Brussels, 2022 – Photo by Turn Up The Volume

TUTV: As you can read above the critics are quite divided. TUTV’s verdict is somewhere
in the middle. The Collective is monotone at times, going nowhere at times, too often of
the same timbre.

Imagine walking around in a car assembling factory and machines go off, sometimes all
of them together, sometimes a sledgehammer goes solo, but despite the fact that the chaotic noise is fascinating in itself, it’s like the factory is empty and there’s nobody to orchestrate the machines in the intriguing way they were conducted on her 2019 debut exploit No Home Record.

Mind you there are some startling tracks on the record, the 3 singles, Dream Dollar
and Tree House, but as a unit, it doesn’t work enough to be memorable. Score: 6.5/10.

Singles/clips: Psychedelic Orgasm / By Bye / I’m A Man

– PSYCHEDELIC ORGASM –

– BYE BYE –

– I’M A MAN –

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