Coming Apart

“I can only think of you in the abstract” is the stretched out opening coarse groan of the original ‘Kool Thing’, Kim Gordon.

These nine words backed by a wall of dissonant layering of fellow guitar wielder Bill Nace couldn’t provide a more accurate depiction of what listeners are in for in Body/Head’s debut release Coming Apart.

Warning: if your anticipation of Body/Head was riding on the waves of Gordon’s late Sonic Youth work, you’d better put the record back on the shelf and dig up some original wax – this vinyl is about noise not melody.

Coming Apart is a double LP that comprises predominately of Gordon versus Nace in an organised chaos of guitar and lyrical improvisation.

There is a consistent bold reference to a feminine prose with track titles including Murderess, a haunting one-minute spoken-word piece. Last Mistress proceeds, losing Gordon’s monotone drawl in a thick cloud of industrial smog, only to be cleared by the same Sonic Youth inspired hook that introduced the track. Actress ensues in a more drone-inspired setting as Gordon repetitively crows the word hard hard hard, the pinnicale of ferocity on the LP.

Considerable highlight on the record is ‘Can’t Help You’. Gordon and Nace’s true innovation is encapsulated on this track as the wall of experimental sound traces elements from psychedelica to shoe-gaze to drawn out drone to amplified screeching polarised into five minutes of experimental glory.

The record is an intense yet alluring trip of experimental noise-rock that doesn’t bare any relief for seventy minutes. Gordon has produced an unsurprising creative embodiment of her avant-garde artistic existence. This record is inspired and unforgiving.

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