Body/Head, the duo of Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth, Free Kitten) and Bill Nace (Ceylon Mange, Northampton Wools, Open Mouth label), are readying a new LP called The Switch due out July 13th on Matador Records. The follow-up to their 2013 debut Coming Apart, the new record finds the pair working again with engineer/producer Justin Pizzoferrato. Recorded last summer in Western Massachusetts, The Switch is a deep dive into Gordon and Nace’s experimental approach to creation. With some of the record sketched out during their previous live performances, Jes Skolnik reported this past May that a bulk of the new material was recorded on the fly during last year’s summer sessions.
Today we check out the track “You Don’t Need.” Opening with a swirling drone of low end, the cut spends the first minute or so in a slow hover of distressed buzzing. Filled with malignant textures and the futile flapping of bat’s wings, the duo’s abstract guitar work sure makes for a murky dissonance. Soon, though, Gordon’s catatonic vocals emerge from the stark gloom, but it’s not long before the track drops into a suspended k-hole of negative space. Stuck there briefly, when Gordon’s vocals return, accompanied by transmissions from a dying fly, her voice sounds like it’s being scratched out by a muffled distance or handkerchief of ether.
