Kim Gordon has confirmed the release of her third solo album Play Me, due out on March 13 via Matador Records, continuing a late career creative surge that has positioned her as one of the most vital voices in contemporary alternative music. The album follows 2024’s The Collective, a release that earned Gordon her first Grammy nominations and reaffirmed her ability to evolve without diluting the artistic principles that have defined her work since the early 1980s.
Play Me reunites Gordon with producer Justin Raisen, a longtime collaborator whose credits include Charli XCX and Sky Ferreira. The partnership builds on the language they developed on The Collective, while pushing Gordon further toward tightly constructed songs, heightened rhythmic focus and a broader sonic range. According to Gordon, the intent behind the sessions was clarity and immediacy, with an emphasis on speed, concision and beat driven structures.
Working from rhythm has long been central to Gordon’s approach, from her earliest days in Sonic Youth through to her experimental projects and solo material. On Play Me, that instinct is sharpened. The songs are deliberately short and direct, built around insistent pulses and textures that draw from motorik repetition and electronic minimalism, while leaving space for Gordon’s unmistakable voice and lyric sensibility. Raisen’s understanding of her vocal delivery and writing process plays a significant role in shaping the record’s focus.
The album announcement arrives alongside the release of “Not Today”, the first single from Play Me. The track opens in a haze of distorted guitar before Gordon’s vocal enters, delivered in a register that marks a subtle but striking shift from her recent recordings. Gordon has described the performance as tapping into a voice she had not used in some time, an instinctive response that emerged naturally during the sessions.
“Not Today” is accompanied by a short film directed by Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the designers and filmmakers behind Rodarte. Known for their avant-garde and feminine visual language, the Mulleavys created a piece that places Gordon within a domestic setting, moving freely through the space in a custom-made dress originally designed for her as part of a previous Rodarte collection. The film underscores Gordon’s longstanding relationship with fashion and visual art, disciplines that have consistently intersected with her music career.
Gordon’s return with Play Me sits within a wider artistic narrative that spans more than four decades. Born in Rochester, New York and raised in Los Angeles, Gordon moved to New York City in 1980 with ambitions rooted in the art world. That move led to the formation of Sonic Youth in 1981 alongside Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, a band that would become one of the most influential acts in alternative music history. Over three decades, Sonic Youth redefined the vocabulary of guitar based music, releasing landmark albums such as Daydream Nation and Goo and shaping the emergence of grunge and underground rock in the 1990s.
Following the dissolution of Sonic Youth in 2011, Gordon entered a prolific period that saw her form Body/Head, release experimental recordings, mount major gallery exhibitions and eventually step forward as a solo artist. Her debut solo album No Home Record arrived in 2019, followed by The Collective in 2024, which was met with widespread acclaim and industry recognition.
Play Me continues that trajectory, reflecting Gordon’s engagement with contemporary life and cultural unease. Themes across the record touch on technology, power structures and a sense of living in what Gordon has described as a “post empire” moment, where systems feel unstable and human presence is increasingly abstracted. Tracks such as “Dirty Tech” directly address anxieties around artificial intelligence and automation, grounding the album’s rhythmic drive in sharply observed commentary.
With Play Me, Kim Gordon once again demonstrates her ability to respond to the present without nostalgia or retreat. The album stands as another chapter in a career defined by reinvention, artistic discipline and a refusal to stand still.
Kim Gordon – Play Me Tracklist
“Play Me”
“Girl With A Look”
“No Hands”
“Black Out”
“Dirty Tech”
“Not Today”
“Busy Bee”
“Square Jaw”
“Subcon”
“Post Empire”
“Nail Biter”
“Byebye25!”
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