Kim Gordon, photo by Moni Haworth

Kim Gordon has returned to announce her third solo studio album, Play Me, arriving on March 13 via Matador. For her follow-up to 2024’s Grammy-nominated The Collective, the former Sonic Youth vocalist, guitarist and bassist reunited with producer Justin Raisen and determined to turn from the massive, grinding, hip-hop-influenced sound of her prior solo efforts into a style grounded in krautrock regimentation and overwhelming emotion. The shift is striking in her ardently melodic vocals on the lead single, “Not Today.”

“I started singing in a way I hadn’t sung in a long time,” said Gordon. “This other voice came out.”

Gordon’s third collaboration with alt-pop hitmaker Raisen builds on their foundation of understanding to capture immediacy through a fast and loose process. The resulting 12-track set is instinctive, reactive and vivid, overloading the motorik song structures with sentiment and conviction. “We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon detailed. “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 released the first track off of Play Me last June with “ByeBye25!,” an updated take on the standout from her 2024 record that shifts its industrial hip-hop chant from numbing must-haves like “milk thistle” and “calcium” to terms targeted by Trump’s culture war, like “gay,” “victim,” “women,” “mental health” and “care.” Where that song was coupled with a homespun “Subterranean Homesick Blues”-y video, today’s matches the track’s dizzy bliss with footage of the artist dancing madly and playing basketball in a custom silk dress, directed by Rodarte founders Kate and Laura Mulleavy.

Play Me is available to pre-order and pre-save now. Watch the music video for “Not Today” below, and read on for the album’s full tracklist.

 

 

 

 

 

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Play Me – Kim Gordon:
01. “Play Me”
02. “Girl With A Look”
03. “No Hands”
04. “Black Out”
05. “Dirty Tech”
06. “Not Today”
07. “Busy Bee”
08. “Square Jaw”
09. “Subcon”
10. “Post Empire”
11. “Nail Biter”
12. “ByeBye25!”