'Play Me' is made up of 12 intense tracks, and only a couple last longer than three minutes. It dashes between nightmarish, surreal, abrasive and scrappy. The whole thing is unrelentingly confrontational as well, a gnashing reflection of what's going on in the world with no sugar-coated escapism on offer. "It's the only way I know how to be," says Kim. "I'm not trying to prove anything intentional with 'Play Me', I just like showing that there's a way to make music that isn't like how other people make music," she explains, finding a lot of modern records a bit dull. Neil Young is still her go-to artist for when she needs comfort, and while she's been told to check out Geese, she hasn't got around to it yet. "Music provides a space to think and reflect [on what's happening around you]. Ideally, that doesn't have anything to do with the commercial world," she says before issuing a challenge. "I dare AI to try and copy 'Play Me'." AI is just one of the topics that Kim skewers on 'Play Me', with fascism, tech billionaires and toxic masculinity all shredded over scuzzy, industrial beats. "I felt bombarded by what was happening as soon as Trump got into office. We had Elon Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency... everything was happening so fast. This album is my reaction to that," Kim explains. Even though she delivers barbed digs at Musk ("You want to go to Mars, and then what?" she asks on 'Subcon') and the president ("You don't trump me, I trump you"), Kim Gordon is hesitant to describe 'Play Me' as a political record. "It's definitely a joyful one, though." "It just feels more emotional [than what I've done before]. It doesn't feel angry. It's intense, but it's more reflective," she continues. Why? "I don't know. It wasn't really premeditated; I just liked the challenge of it. I just feel like it has a lot of joy in it despite the darkness." A lot of that comes from the absurdist humour in 'Play Me', which takes our bleak, dystopian reality to playful extremes, highlighting just how bizarre things really are. "There is a lot of humour to 'Play Me', and I'm glad that comes across because I can look very serious, and I do tend to just go off talking about politics in interviews," she says. "I'd rather do that than talk about the music, because each song is meant to be open for interpretation. There needs to be space for the listener's own emotions." What she wants people to get from 'Play Me' is a good time.

It's a shift away from the sneering irony that defined Sonic Youth and other 90s guitar greats. "There's a little irony on 'Play Me' because I'm from a generation that's always ready to be ironic, but a lot of it is in the spirit of punk. When people dressed in bondage, it was because they felt like society had put them in bondage. There wasn't anything ironic about that." The same energy drives the purring 'Dirty Tech', which sees Kim imaging a world where AI is her boss. "It's important to take it on as a serious thing, though," she adds, not wanting to make fear the punchline. The joy and rage behind 'Play Me' make it the perfect record for live gigs, but Kim isn't sure how much time she'll spend on the road. "I have to talk myself into touring. If you haven't done it in a while, you don't know if you can do it again. And who knows what the global landscape will look like after the AI bubble bursts?" "It's just so hard to make money touring," she adds. "You have to play festivals in order to do the club gigs, which are usually more fun." Still, she has no interest in tapping into the 90s nostalgia trend by digging through the Sonic Youth back catalogue to try and appeal to more people. "I just wouldn't be able to do it." After five years between 'No Home Record' and 'The Collective', 'Play Me' came together in just four months. "It was viscerally fun to make," says Kim. "Justin was just on fire. He was super focused. I think he was disappointed that we didn't get a Grammy on the last record," after it was nominated for two: Best Alternative Album and Best Alternative Performance for 'Bye Bye'. "Something like that is good for the endorphins," but it didn't inspire the pair to write more of the same. "That never seems to work." "I was surprised 'The Collective' got nominated, but I do feel like it deserved it," says Kim. "That's Justin's world, though. I've never cared about the Grammys. That part of the music industry is a completely different planet for me, so even being nominated was a novelty." 'Bye Bye', an anxiety-riddled, literal packing list of a song, also blew up on TikTok. "The words are so banal, but the music is so intense, which I really enjoyed," says Kim. "I do get a lot of anxiety about going on a trip." They did revisit the track for 'Play Me''s closing track 'ByeBye25!' which replaces the guided tour of a suitcase with a long list of words censored by the Trump administration, including "trauma", "privilege", "uterus" and "peanut allergy". The track was released last summer, with proceeds going to reproductive rights nonprofit Noise For Now. It was Justin's idea to redo the song, inspired by rap remixes. "He's always trying to poke that world a bit. I thought that collection of words was an obvious choice." There were many more they could have used as well. "I do find it funny how the new version doesn't have the same anxiety as the original."

With tracks about right-wing politicians acting like they're victims of feminism ('I'm A Man') and bowling ('Trophies'), making 'The Collective' was more cathartic than 'Play Me'," says Kim. "This album just presented itself to me. I've worked my whole life, and I'm suddenly at this point where everything's really come together. I feel like this record is definitely the peak of everything I've done." And Kim Gordon has done a lot. She's a celebrated artist and fashion icon as well as the author of the best-selling candid memoir Girl In A Band. Kim has been a member of alternative rock band Free Kitten, experimental electro group Glitterbust and noise rock duo Body/Head, but is most well-known for co-founding iconic guitar group Sonic Youth, who helped define alternative music throughout the 80s and 90s with their unorthodox noise rock. "When I hear a Sonic Youth song, I'll go, 'Oh, that actually is cool or interesting', but I don't know if I really feel the influence of Sonic Youth anywhere today," she says, despite groups like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive finding a new audience on TikTok. Her daughter Coco has turned her onto New York band voyeur, who are inspired by Sonic Youth ("I really like 'The Burden Of Desire', it's a very ballsy song, and that's definitely a title I'd come up with."). Beyond that, she isn't sure what their impact is. After Sonic Youth broke up in 2011, it took eight years for Kim to go it alone. "I just never really thought about making a solo record," she admits. After moving back to Los Angeles from New York, the plan was for her to concentrate on her art, with the desire to make music satisfied by Body/Head. "It's one of the most fun things ever. There's so much freedom to it, and there are no interviews required." After several nudges from Justin Raisen, Kim changed her mind. "It's a good job he's so persistent, or I never would have done a solo record." The most surprising thing about making 'No Home Record' was how "the things that influenced me when I first moved to New York, like no wave music, were still the things that I was drawing from." After 38 years of making music in various bands, there were no nerves about releasing a solo record. The pair reconnected for the experimental 'The Collective', which cut trap beats with noisy, scuzzy guitars. "Usually when producers want to make a hip-hop record with rock, it's always super corny, but Justin has this pretty trash sensibility, which is why it worked," says Kim. Over the past few years, Kim has worked on lyrics by herself and recorded the occasional guitar melody on her voice memos, but almost everything else has been a result of collaborating with Justin. "He provides this structure and a certain kind of commerciality that I can bring all my weirdness to. He really gets my voice and is sensitive to how to utilise it." As for the future? "It's hard to step back and work out what I'm going to do next," says Kim. "I'll just have to feel my way into it and see what happens." She's currently obsessed with political podcast Breaking Points, but has no desire to either embrace or avoid politics. "I just want to do another record that is as pleasurable as 'Play Me', or that helps me discover something different." She goes into the studio to cure boredom and finds taking chances "exhilarating", which explains her entire discography. After more than 40 years of progressive, alternative art, does she think releasing a record like 'Play Me' is a risk? "I guess it might be…"

Making music lets Kim Gordon say things she perhaps wouldn't otherwise. There's something performative about stepping into the vocal booth and then hearing her voice filtered through several layers of technology. " It makes me feel like a different person, or like I'm outside of myself," she explains. Confidence comes and goes depending on how good she thinks she sounds. "There's always a little bit of transcendence. It's weird, but it's always been that way." It's perhaps why Kim regularly describes herself as "not a musician". Before picking up the bass, Kim Gordon studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. She moved to New York in 1979 to get involved with the art scene there, but quickly got caught up with the experimental art punk scene that was blossoming at the time. She never had any guitar lessons before forming Sonic Youth, and everything that followed came from playing around and finding what felt good. "I still think of myself as an artist who plays music," she explains. "I don't know whether there's a little bit of imposter syndrome there, but I don't think it will ever change." People regularly ask her what the difference is between her visual art and her music. "I am the same person doing both, so there are some similarities," she smirks. "I don't really know anything about music, so I don't have the same self-consciousness about it. I can just go into my body, which is where I feel most confident. With art, it's easy to get stuck in your head. The best art I've ever made has been the stupidest, so I have to keep reminding myself about that." "I do look at music the same as my art, though. Is it pretty? Is it agreeable? Those aren't my concerns. " Taken from the March 2026 issue of Dork. Kim Gordon's album 'Play Me' is out 13th March.