Kim Gordon’s third album, PLAY ME , is distilled and immediate, expanding Gordon’s sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautrock. “We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says. “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident.” The follow-up to 2024’s Justin Raisen-produced, two-time Grammy-nominated The Collective processes, in her inimitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill-vibes flattening of culture – where dark humor voices the absurdity of modern life. Despite its frequent outward gaze, PLAY ME is an interior record, one in which a heightened emotionality pulses through physical jams, rejecting definitive statements in favor of an inquisitiveness that keeps Gordon searching, ever in process.