The seeds of Kim Gordon and Bill Nace’s Body/Head project were sown in the artistic and countercultural hub of Northampton, Massachusetts in the late 1990s. While Nace spent the decade establishing himself as a well-regarded guitarist of experimental and improvisational music on the scene, Gordon moved to “Paradise City” with her then husband and Sonic Youth bandmate, Thurston Moore in 1999.
Having later recalled being introduced to Gordon by Moore at a festival (“She offered me a sip [of scotch] and we just stood there – two shy people standing together in silence.") Nace and Gordon hit it off and started to making fully improvised music in the guise of Body/Head.
Their debut Coming Apart proved an hour-long trip of serrating drone primitivism and a purgative statement of intent in its own right. Masterfully minimalist and perfectly unguarded, it captured creative alchemy between a pair of polymaths that was already manifesting itself to convulsive effect on the live front. Five years, one live album and two dozen shows on, the pair are back with their second and most brilliant wind in the form of The Switch. Recording in the same Easthampton, Massachusetts recording studio as their debut, it’s an enveloping, five-track tide of improv experimental guitar sorcery that sees Gordon and Nace conjure some extraordinary new space.
From graphic novels and generation-defining TV shows to lost avant-psych, footwork gems and experimental rock majick, Gordon and Nace talk to Brian Coney about the sounds and scenes that helped inspire the writing and recording of The Switch. Body/Head’s new album The Switch is out on 13th July
