Play Me, released in March, is the former Sonic Youth member’s third solo album. For the LP, Gordon teamed up again with Justin Raisen, who collaborated with her on her past two solo efforts. Her goal with the record was for it to be “more beat oriented than the last one.”
“I have to say, the thing that influenced me most was the news,” Gordon said of the new album’s lyrics. “We are in some kind of ‘post empire’ now, where people just disappear.”
“I don’t have the kind of voice to be a singer-singer, and I get really inspired by rhythm and beats,” Gordon told Rolling Stone of making the album. “Occasionally a melody will pop out of somewhere accidentally, but this kind of vocal just feels most natural for me.”
She added, “I see the music I’m making now as really — without sounding pretentious — it is kind of my art, in a way. It’s not really aspiring to be anything else.”
Gordon is currently touring in support of Play Me. She performs tonight in New York City and continues around the U.S. through the summer. She will also perform as part of music festival Summerfest in Milwaukee in June.
The record marks the third solo release from the Free Kitten and former Sonic Youth star, and it will be released on March 13 by Matador Records.
According to a new press release, the record is both “distilled and immediate”, and sees the artist expanding her musical horizons to include more-melodic beats, alongside the motorik drive of krautrock.
“We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon said, discussing the collaboration with producer Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira, Yves Tumor). “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.”
Gordon has shared the first taster of the new LP in the form of lead single ‘Not Today’.
