Kim Gordon was always Sonic Youth’s most reliable avant-gardist, her contributions over the years taking the band far out into grind, ambience, and abstraction even as her fellow vocalists mellowed out and discovered melody. And Body/Head, her post-SY duo with fellow noisenik Bill Nace, has kept that experimental streak intact. So its something of a surprise that “Murdered Out,” Gordon’s first track released under her own name, is such a swaggering, straightahead rock ‘n roll song.
“Murdered Out,” rides a single descending bass line for its entire three and a half minutes, with Gordon’s screeching guitar and lyrics about secondhand smoke and black matte spray paint on top. She told NPR that the record was produced in collaboration with Justin Raisen, who has worked with Ariel Pink and Sky Ferreria, and that Stella Mogazawa of Warpaint played drums. For now, the song appears to be a one-off, though she and Raisen “talked about doing more stuff” together, she said.
