The Singles Jukebox

Wow some of y’all were determined to tank her…

[Video]
[6.57]

Ian Mathers: Does pass the admittedly quite low bar of “better than most Sonic Youth stuff” handily; the combination of distorted strings and deeply fried bass bins sounds great, and even the pastoral bit goes well with Gordon’s voice. Something about the off-kilter rhythm puts me in mind of Dead Rider’s great “Blank Screen.” I literally cannot imagine the response this will get here.
[7]

Oliver Maier: Kim Gordon draws from the legacy of acts like Suicide and Xiu Xiu on “Sketch Artist”, mining that precarious terrain where nihilistic noise meets disarming fragility. The moment when the industrial pounding lets up just as it threatens to become rote, a cluster of guitars permitted to peek through the gap in the clouds, is so essential. Gordon herself falls somewhere between Jamie Stewart and Patti Smith in her vocal, channelling the former’s uncanny drama and the latter’s ability to sound utterly possessed. Perhaps there could be more happening here — I wish the uneasy, seesawing woodwind motif was expanded on further — but Gordon still does a lot with a little, and keeps me firmly engaged through what in less capable hands could have been a complete slog.
[8]

Tim de Reuse: Consider the juxtaposition of that hyper-aggressive distortion against those groaning woodwinds and that plucky, melodic interlude; surely, it wants to shock the listener with a series of plot twists, but to what end? There are so many elements for such a short track that none of them have any room to develop or click together. Fantastic at grabbing attention — not so great at doing anything with it.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Listening to PJ Harvey’s Is This Desire as a primer for post-jungle drums ‘n’ bass distortion and gravelly enunciation of evocative catchphrases, Kim Gordon turns “Sketch Artist” into a sketch for an artist. She drops clauses as if they were pebbles, treats vowels like arsenic she can let fall from her mouth. Who the fuck knows what it portends.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: I imagine this must be better live, where it might sound like a one-room apocalypse, rather than through not-great headphones in an office, where it sounds like a sketch of that.
[6]

Kylo Nocom: Kim Gordon imagines a world in which Alan Vega discovered bass boosting. Feverish drones interspersed with headache noise, a perfect simulation of the most painful parts of illness. Being sick is sometimes fun.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: I wish this would last longer just for the listening experience to reflect Gordon’s fatigue, as masochistic as that may sound, but the refrain already does more than enough to convey long-term exhaustion. The back and forth is a classic conversation of art: you, the artist, do the thing, then you wait for the response. But my, are those dead stares fucking terrifying while you wait your evaluation. Gordon’s TV-static-punk is the perfect soundtrack for the internal panic; the blown-out feedback also resonant as the literal screech of the digital era. Better to be assaulted by noise, I suppose, when it’s the best thing compared to deafening silence.
[7]