Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
For over four decades, Kim Gordon has navigated the edges where fine art meets noise. Her claim to fame was as a founding member of Sonic Youth, the band that took the nihilistic, abrasive energy of New York's no wave scene and forged it into a new language for rock.
(Subscribe to our channel: youtube.com/residentadvisor )
After Sonic Youth's public breakup in 2011, Gordon returned to her original creative practice: visual art. But in recent years, she has undergone a staggering creative transformation that's led her back to music. At 72—an age when most legends are content with the heritage circuit—she has instead dived headlong into the sounds of the present: industrial electronics, Chicago footwork and the blown-out low-end of SoundCloud rap.
Aiming to break with her Sonic Youth legacy, Gordon released her first two solo albums, No Home Record and The Collective, in 2019 and 2024, respectively. And now, she's back with her third LP: PLAY ME. Working alongside producer Justin Raisen, she uses beat-oriented frameworks to interrogate what she calls the "tyranny of frictionless culture." From naming Spotify playlists in her lyrics to donating proceeds to reproductive rights, her work remains a vital, confrontational critique of late capitalism and technocratic fascism.
In this RA Exchange, Gordon discusses the process of moving closer to solo work, as well as the masculinity of rock; her evolving relationship with electronic music; the politics of the "body;" and why, after thinking she was done with music, she keeps getting pulled back in.
-----------------------
Website: ra.co
Follow us:
tiktok.com/@residentadvisor
instagram.com/resident_advisor
facebook.com/residentadvisor
-----------------------
00:55 - Hip-hop influence
06:55 - "I don't listen to contemporary music"
13:22 - Masculinity
28:42 - voyeur & Sonic Youth
For over four decades, Kim Gordon has navigated the edges where fine art meets noise. Her claim to fame was as a founding member of Sonic Youth, the band that took the nihilistic, abrasive energy of New York's no wave scene and forged it into a new language for rock.
(Subscribe to our channel: youtube.com/residentadvisor )
After Sonic Youth's public breakup in 2011, Gordon returned to her original creative practice: visual art. But in recent years, she has undergone a staggering creative transformation that's led her back to music. At 72—an age when most legends are content with the heritage circuit—she has instead dived headlong into the sounds of the present: industrial electronics, Chicago footwork and the blown-out low-end of SoundCloud rap.
Aiming to break with her Sonic Youth legacy, Gordon released her first two solo albums, No Home Record and The Collective, in 2019 and 2024, respectively. And now, she's back with her third LP: PLAY ME. Working alongside producer Justin Raisen, she uses beat-oriented frameworks to interrogate what she calls the "tyranny of frictionless culture." From naming Spotify playlists in her lyrics to donating proceeds to reproductive rights, her work remains a vital, confrontational critique of late capitalism and technocratic fascism.
In this RA Exchange, Gordon discusses the process of moving closer to solo work, as well as the masculinity of rock; her evolving relationship with electronic music; the politics of the "body;" and why, after thinking she was done with music, she keeps getting pulled back in.
-----------------------
Website: ra.co
Follow us:
tiktok.com/@residentadvisor
instagram.com/resident_advisor
facebook.com/residentadvisor
-----------------------
00:55 - Hip-hop influence
06:55 - "I don't listen to contemporary music"
13:22 - Masculinity
28:42 - voyeur & Sonic Youth
