On 2019’s No Record Home, Kim Gordon’s solid solo debut, the veteran artist put down the guitar/bass (for the most part) moving into unique noise/pop territory working with producer Justin Raisen. Continuing their partnership, they have taken the best aspects of that record and excellently exploded things even further out there as The Collective is a dense layering of big bass blasts, grating synths, and a spoken word tone whose overall frightening industrial dance sound is both hypnotic and jarring.
The whole nebulous record takes on a feeling of one long disorientating experience/fashionable modern nightmare, as things kick off with “BYE BYE” and never let up. The openers’ banging bass and monotone allows Gordon to play the role of reciter, listing things to pack as something bubbles under the surface, dealing with life but not being present due to all the noise surrounding it. The track is at once off-putting and oddly soothing as the clanging beats and abrasive synths work their bizarre alchemy.
Gordon’s industrial-tinged aggression keeps the album from ever sliding into background music as “The Candy House” is ominous. Beats bludgeon ear drums only to creepily disappear completely, as if DJing a psychological horror-based dance party. “It’s Dark Inside” is wild with sounds slamming in or fading out, speakers are bombarded to the point of exploding before silence, while more big beats and screeches color “I Don’t Miss My Mind” as Gordon intones “Don’t Fuck It Up” to close.
Gordon’s singing has always been direct and never raises levels, but lyrically she remains poetic and insightful, especially when dealing with gender roles. This continues with “I’m A Man” moving with fluidity/confusion as she has done many times in her Sonic Youth past before shifting to becoming breathy, sexy, and just out of reach on “Shelf Warmer”, an icy, layered, sparse dance track that swells with conflicting desire on a material level.
This industrial grinding is captured in beautifully broken fashion throughout “Psychedelic Orgasm” a warped neon tale of driving in L.A. as shifting synths and drum machines set an eerie tone that keeps the listener on the precipice of the end of days. When Gordon gets even more experimental like on the wandering “Tree House” or “Trophies” (which seems to literally be about going bowling around sparse, murderous, hip-hop beats) the results are at least interesting.
Efforts like the heavily distorted blaring cacophony of “The Believers” weave riffs/beats/synths into a chaotic mess while the album-closing, upbeat, motoring, bizarre industrial dance-laden “Dream Dollar” wonders as Gordon and Raisen use their power to enthrall and keep things on the edge of the abyss.
With the world in various states of burning, The Collective plays perfectly as mental breakdown dance music with Kim Gordon continuing to expertly conjure sounds, cinematic scope, and cutting lines fantastically. Never a relaxing listen, but an artistic success all around.