It’s impossible to ignore the leering elephant in the room when considering Coming Apart, Kim Gordon’s first post-breakup and post-Sonic Youth album, especially given the title. But it’s worth appreciating that this is not a solo record, collaborator Bill Nace has his own pedigree, albeit not as conspicuous. As Body/Head, they have produced a challenging and rewarding noise record that reflects both Gordon’s roots in the early 1980’s no wave art scene and Nace’s in experimental guitar.
Broadly speaking, Coming Apart can be described as layers of coherent and abstracted guitars underpinning Gordon’s talk-sung meditations. Frankly, that could be terrible, but it isn’t. In fact it’s remarkably engaging. Through careful dynamism and bleak lyrical matter, the music achieves a whole greater than its parts. Stand out pieces include the unsettling and claustrophobic ‘Last Mistress’ with its dark bitterness or the spacious menace of ‘Black’ which compliments and contrasts this.
Coming Apart is not a relaxing album but it is poignant and darkly beautiful. Together Gordon and Nace have produced a collection of art noise tracks that remind us of Gordon’s significance as an artist and musician and illuminates Nace as a hitherto less recognised but no less remarkable talent.
