Sonic Youth co-founder and all-round music legend Kim Gordon unveils the latest video from her debut solo album No Home Record. This new body of work sees Gordon enter into an uncharted and exciting chapter in her career since returning to her hometown of LA after spending decades developing, evolving and cementing her craft in New York.
Directed by German multimedia artist Loretta Fahrenholz, Earthquake was shot from the eye of a surveillance camera, which gradually devours the exterior world and ejects a pixelated palette of digital shapes, graphical measurements and heat signatures onto the screen.
Gordon and Fahrenholz did an exclusive interview with NOWNESS on the eve of the release to discuss some of the key concepts that feature in Earthquake and the album at large.
The album's visuals are quite anchored in city life. Having recently moved back to California after decades in New York, how do you view your relationship with LA?
KG: When I was in New York I missed the open space. But in LA there’s also a sense of impending doom, whether it’s fire season or actual earthquakes. But people adapt and everything eventually becomes normalized.
Los Angeles is a really voyeuristic city and you’re usually looking at things from a distance. That’s what’s cool about this video. It shows everyone going about their business. People think of LA as quite a utopian place but really it’s just a mirage.
What was the inspiration behind “Earthquake” and its gradual descent into a digitally manipulated world?
LF: I filmed most of this footage while shooting “Sketch Artist”. I used a phone, and not a camera, because it’s a device that’s meditating on the city all the time. I wanted to keep it simple, so it made sense to just sit in a car and press the phone against the window while driving around—almost like a dash cam.
I worked with K8 Howl and Jak Ritger (TRLLM) on the special effects and we talked a lot about how the texture of surveillance can be quite seductive.That’s what we tried to recreate in the video—a celebration of the pixelated materiality of security footage.
KG: Cameras are always recording you, your laptop is listening to you... Our idea of what is private has become public. It’s hard to even define what a private moment is.
What is it about your solo debut that you feel is a departure from your previous collaborations?
KG: The difference is that I was with a producer I had never worked with before. At the same time I was surprised that the album still felt so much like me. I kind of felt that Justin Raisenm (producer) could make a song out of anything I brought to him. He once described my lyrics as 'fucked-up, fragmented poetry' but he can make sense of it. “Earthquake” is probably the most personal and vulnerable sounding song on the album and I like how this contrasts with the video—it being so urban.
In this creative collaboration, what is it about each other’s art that resonates within your own work?
LF: I remember we talked about doing something together for years.
KG: I’m a big fan of Loretta’s films.
LF: We would listen to the songs while shooting to see how the music connected to the city. When you listen again and again the experience changes, it starts effecting your whole body and creeping inside your organs. That’s what I love about Kim’s music.
KG: As it’s a solo record I feel like the videos don’t make me feel alone—through the video it has an external connection and another meaning.
LF: I feel that because we’ve known each other for quite some time we could react to the city in a very spontaneous way, just like the album gives listeners a freedom to react. We would just show up at a mall with a phone and see what happened. You can only do that when you trust each other’s process. I’m not a musician but I guess it would be similar to jamming.
Lastly, how do you want people to feel when they listen to the album or watch the video?
KG: I want their minds to be blown.
LF: ...Like a sugar high.