Former Sonic Youth rocker Kim Gordon and Bill Nace have formed experimental rock band Body/Head. Source: Supplied
IT has been almost a decade since Kim Gordon last graced our shores, when her former band, much-loved alt-rock veterans Sonic Youth, showcased their seminal 1988 album Daydream Nation as part of the Don’t Look Back series.
“Oh wow. I don’t even remember — was that the last time?” she laughs.
Gordon is in town with her current musical mainstay, the two-piece improv outfit Body/Head, which is making its debut outing Down Under at boutique Melbourne festival Sugar Mountain next week.
First staged in 2011, Sugar Mountain has returned after a year off in new digs at the Victorian College of the Arts. Joining Body/Head across its five stages are a diverse range of acts from hip-hop alumnus Nas to no-wave legends Swans and indie wunderkind Ariel Pink.
Body/Head is a perfect fit for the experimental, visual arts-heavy gala, though Gordon — who has been painting prolifically in recent years, with recent exhibitions on both sides of the Atlantic — will be sticking solely to the musical medium this time around.
“It’s really hard to focus on both things at once,” she says.
Body/Head is Gordon and fellow guitarist Bill Nace, who has a string of underground band credits to his name, including X. O. 4, Vampire Belt and Ceylon Mange.
Three years ago Gordon invited Nace to play on a single — a cover of the pop-jazz standard Fever — that she cut for Belgian musician and artist Dennis Tyfus’s label, Ultra Eczema.
“I asked Bill to add something to it, and that was really great,” she says. “And then we were playing down in my basement, and recording.”
So when did Gordon and Nace realise they were a band?
“When we came up with the name (Body/Head is the title of a film by controversial French director Catherine Breillat),” she laughs.
“Uh, yeah, that’s a great name, we should have a band.
“We kept playing together and went to Europe and did a bunch of dates, then came back and put out a 12-inch (2013’s Body/Head EP on the Open Mouth label), and then we came back and we recorded the album.”
Coming Apart was released in September 2013, on the Matador label, to widespread critical acclaim.
While all four members of Sonic Youth have been musically prolific since the band went on hiatus in 2011, Gordon has stayed closest to her former band’s experimental roots. She is also enjoying the dynamic of playing in a duo.
“It’s nice. You know, it’s simple, no drama,” she says. “No drums — which makes a difference — just two guitars.”
She says such a set-up “implies” rhythm and lends the music a quality it might not have with a more traditional band line-up. Gordon also is full of praise for her band mate.
“Bill is such an amazing guitar player. He doesn’t like it when I say this, but he has some ‘girl energy’,” she laughs.
“When it’s just two people it makes it really intense because there’s no one else to rely on.”
It’s shaping up to be another busy year for Gordon, with her highly anticipated autobiography Girl In a Band to be released next month.
“I hadn’t really thought of writing a memoir,” she says.
“I was starting to get approached by people. At that point of my life things fell apart, and it was important to — like, it’s hard for me to know what I’m thinking about something unless I write it, so that’s one reason. But it made me look into my past and my childhood.”
Body/Head released a new seven-inch single, The Show is Over, last November, and Gordon says there are definitely more records in their future.
As for her former band, the future seems more bleak. Asked if she foresees a time when Sonic Youth will reform to tour or record, her response is polite but succinct. “Yeah, not really.”
SEE: BODY/HEAD, SUGAR MOUNTAIN, VICTORIAN COLLEGE OF THE ARTS, JANUARY 24 SUGARMOUNTAINFESTIVAL.COM
HEAR: COMING APART (MATADOR RECORDS) OUT NOW
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